


Whimsical

by strawberryrose



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Amusement Park Owner Harry Potter, Amusement Parks, Family, Fluff, H/D Career Fair 2017, HP: EWE, Honeydukes, Honeydukes Sweetmaker Draco Malfoy, M/M, Muggle Technology, POV Draco Malfoy, Pining Draco Malfoy, Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-20
Updated: 2017-10-20
Packaged: 2018-12-26 20:40:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 42,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12066606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawberryrose/pseuds/strawberryrose
Summary: In which Draco is completely out of his depth (until he isn’t), Harry builds something improbable with the help of his friends, and everyone bonds over food.





	Whimsical

**Author's Note:**

> For Prompt #[202](https://hd-fan-fair.livejournal.com/124297.html?thread=4884105#t4884105).
> 
> Dear prompter, thank you so much for this prompt! It caught me immediately, and somehow became the longest thing I’ve ever written. You’d think I’d been waiting years to write magical confectioner/amusement park owner fic! It was all an Experience, and it was wonderful! I hope you have even more fun reading this than I did writing it!
> 
> Special thanks to the mods, who led my newbie self through this process and very graciously granted an extension when I got sick at the last minute, and to my wonderful beta, who polished this fic to a shine! Thank you all for your patience with me! All remaining mistakes are mine.

The first Monday morning in April began exactly the same way as Monday mornings always did. Draco’s alarm spell went off at the crack of dawn, he dragged himself out of bed and performed the requisite personal grooming spells, dressed, and then prepared and ate a somewhat measly but leisurely breakfast of jam toast and tea. Work was just how it always was - somewhat raucous as he crossed the main floor (it _was_ the Honeydukes headquarters after all, people were usually in fairly high spirits), but quiet down in the basement where Draco’s laboratory-slash-office resided. Draco settled in at his desk and started diligently on paperwork.

The first sign that something was about to shake up his tranquil and only-occasionally-boring routine was a loud, excited “ooh” from the adjacent room.

Draco blinked and looked back over his shoulder at the blank and silent wall.

Things did sometimes get a bit noisy in this little corner of the building - he shared the hall with two other developers of charmed confectionary, and when any one of them happened across something that not only worked but really _impressed_ , really _popped_ , they could all get rather worked up.

The wall he was staring at, however, was not shared with one of the other labs, but rather his boss’s office. And his boss did not just sit in her office on normal Monday mornings and make loud noises.

A loud, delighted laugh sounded from the other side of the wall.

Draco leaned back in his chair and gave the wall a bemused look. He hadn’t heard his boss this excited since Clearwater had figured out how to make marshmallows that would toast themselves. Nobody had invented anything of particular note lately, though. Not that he knew of, anyway, and he’d have been surprised to find out anyone had been keeping something big a secret.

Draco had only twisted back around and returned to his paperwork for about three minutes when several sharp raps sounded on the door of his office. _Well_ , he thought, he’d figured he would find out what was going on sooner rather than later, but this was even sooner than he’d expected.

“Come in,” Draco called. So quickly that Draco half believed she’d Apparated there, Pamela Crumb, his boss and head of Magical Product Development, appeared in front of his desk, all but literally glowing with every inch of her five-foot-one frame. Through the door that his boss had left open in her wake, Draco could just see Whitby peeking curiously into the corridor from his own office.

“Yes?” Draco asked delicately.

Pamela slid a roll of parchment across the desk at him. “We have a project. _You_ have a project. It’s a good one,” she replied, bursting at the seams with excitement and grinning so wide Draco thought she might split her face in half.

When she didn’t offer any further explanation, Draco skimmed what he’d been given. Honeydukes was being contracted to open a new shop, and make some custom sweets for it - well, that’s where he’d come in. And something about a park, which he didn’t quite follow. And they were doing this for… Draco’s eyes slid to the bottom of the parchment.

When Draco looked back up at his boss, she immediately burst into laughter.

“Oh Malfoy, don’t give me that look! You’ll be brilliant for this, I promise!”

“What look? I’m not giving you any look.”

He was, in fact, fairly certain that he was giving her a look.

“That one right there! You know, the,” Pamela arranged her features into an expression of bewildered entreaty and affected Draco’s accent, “Why are you doing this to me, Pamela?”

Draco scoffed. “I do not sound like that.”

He did, in fact, sound like that.

He also did want to know why Pamela was doing this to him.

He glanced back to the bottom of the parchment, just to make sure the signature there said what it had a few moments before. It did: _George Weasley - Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes_.

Not that Weasleys’ wasn’t a perfectly reputable shop in its own way, and not as though he wasn’t fairly certain that whoever took on this project would produce something truly spectacular, working with George Weasley, the sole inventor of new products at Weasleys’ for more than ten years now. It was just, why was she assigning it to _him_?

“Honestly though, me? Give it to Clearwater, she’ll be thrilled.” And he could go back to his quiet, normal Monday with no Weasleys, no joke shops, and no whatever an “amusement park” was.

Pamela shrugged. “Clearwater’s already working on the special order for the Quidditch World Cup.” Draco resisted the urge to curse under his breath. Of course she was, she’d been neck-deep in the work for weeks.

“Whitby, then.” Out of the corner of his eye, Draco could see Whitby lean even further into the corridor. “He’s new, but-“

“You, Malfoy.” Pamela locked eyes with him and jabbed at the parchment with a finger.

Draco broke first, sighing. Pamela grinned.

“Why are you so excited about this, though? Not just because you got to tell me I’ll be working with Weasleys’?”

The perplexed silence that followed left Draco feeling very much as though there was some crucial information he was missing.

“…They’re building an amusement park?” Draco noticed that at this announcement, both Whitby and Clearwater were peeking directly into the room.

 _Nosy gits_ , he thought, with absolutely no fondness whatsoever. The corner of his mouth did not curl up into a smile one bit.

“It’s Weasleys’ and it’s an amusement park all rolled in one. Honestly Draco, if that doesn’t excite you on principle, I don’t know how to sell you the idea.”

“That’s… very nice,” Draco ventured, coming at last to the root of the problem, “But what, exactly, is an amusement park?”

The fact that all three of his colleagues converged on him nigh-instantaneously to explain all at once about strapping themselves to chairs that were lifted to the top of metal spires and then dropped hundreds of feet, and going over waterfalls while sitting in hollowed-out logs, and riding in railcarts like the ones under Gringotts for fun (except that these tracks stretched high above the ground and would even loop upside-down sometimes) taught Draco five things:  
1: Muggles were absolutely mad.  
2: His coworkers were also mad.  
3: His coworkers all had Muggle relatives.  
4: The Weasleys were probably mad too, not that he didn’t know that already.  
5: He was the least qualified person in his department - possibly in the entire company - for this assignment, and he could only hope that George Weasley had some solid concepts for the candy he wanted, because all Draco could think of at the moment were things like Horrifying Railcart Chocolate, with a blood-red sticky raspberry filling, or Chair of Certain Doom Lolly, where the candy piece was shaped like a chair precariously perched atop the lolly stick, and to be completely honest he didn’t think any of that was going to go over well.

* * *

Tuesday morning did not begin the way that Tuesday mornings always did. Draco’s alarm spell went off at the crack of dawn, and he lay in bed for several minutes, an intense trepidation paralysing him. He was going to start the Weasleys’ project today.

After some time, Draco dragged himself out of bed. He was slow to dress and perform his personal grooming spells, trying on three different robes and discarding them all because _too casual, too formal, too Slytherin_ , before finally landing on a simple black robe with a bit of purple trim. It would do, he supposed. Practical. He could work with simple and practical. He really, _really_ did not want to show up to meet George Weasley looking like Lucius Malfoy Jr. He just didn’t think it would ingratiate him, somehow.

By the time he finished in the bedroom, he only had fifteen minutes left to eat. Draco chewed on his lower lip for several conflicted seconds before arriving at a decision, grabbing his cloak, and Apparating directly out of his kitchen.

He arrived at the Leaky Cauldron no more than a minute later.

“Draco, darling! I didn’t expect to see you today!” Pansy called to him from behind the counter, and Draco, relieved that she was working today after all, made a beeline for her and perched on the nearest bar stool.

It was still slightly odd to see her behind the Leaky’s counter, handling breakfast and lunch most days, even if it had been more than five years. But when Hannah Abbott (Hannah Longbottom, Draco corrected) had taken over as the new owner and the old man had retired, she’d needed a new set of hands to help out. That was what Pansy had told him, at least, after she’d offered  to take over the morning shift. Draco was still not entirely sure when Pansy had become friends with Hannah, but they were thick as thieves these days, as evidenced by the fact that Pansy actually put on a courteous face while working. Usually, she rather hated most everyone.

“Are you all right?” Pansy asked, not quite quietly enough that Draco didn’t figure the handful of other bar patrons could hear. Breakfast wasn’t exactly the Leaky’s busiest time, and the only other sounds in the room were the muted hum of Muggle traffic outside, a murmured conversation between two older witches at the table in the corner, and the sizzle-pop of some sort of breakfast frying back in the kitchen. “You look a bit…” Pansy squinted and frowned at him.

“I’m fine, Pans. Got an assignment in Diagon, but ran out of time for breakfast. If I could have some tea and whatever sort of breakfast you’ve got ready, oh, right now, that would be wonderful.”

“Of course, love!” Pansy hurried off, and in under three minutes Draco had tea, eggs, toast, and sausages so fresh they were still hissing steam. He already felt slightly better.

“So, an assignment?” Pansy asked with great curiosity as Draco tucked into his food as quickly as he could while still maintaining any measure of dignity.

Draco nodded, and though he was chewing and couldn’t answer, he supposed his face must have given something away, as Pansy frowned again and asked,

“Oh, is it bad?” She paused. “Is there such a thing as a bad candy-inventor’s assignment?”

Draco swallowed. “Sort of. I’m… not sure I’m supposed to talk about it yet.” Pansy leaned close immediately, not at all concerned that that meant Draco wouldn’t tell her about it, sharp curiosity written all over her face. Draco murmured in her ear, “Weasleys’.”

Pansy tried and failed to suppress a snort of laughter at his expense. Draco could hardly blame her; he’d be laughing at her, were their positions reversed.

“They’re building some sort of… do you know what an amusement park is?”

Pansy pulled back at that, so startled that Draco immediately knew that yes, she was familiar with the concept of an amusement park. _Pansy_ , of all people, knew what amusement parks were. Not that Pansy was daft or anything, but she had grown up just as mired in pure-blood culture as he had, and Draco was beginning to feel downright stupid.

“Have you been to one?” The words were out of Draco’s mouth before he’d thought them through, and Draco quickly attacked his toast to stem the flow before he properly embarrassed himself.

“No,” Pansy replied, thoughtful. “But Tracey took Millie to one over the summer before fourth year, and they talked about it _endlessly_.”

Even _Bulstrode_ knew what amusement parks were? Draco stuffed more toast in his mouth and kept silent.

“That’s going to be very interesting,” Pansy concluded, dark eyes fixed on some distant memory. “You _must_ tell me everything."

Draco paused with his tea halfway raised. “I’m not sure I’ll actually see any of it. Someone else is handling construction of the shop, I’m just there to make sweets.”

“You’re sure to get some detail or other,” Pansy assured him.

Then a tiny old, slightly hunched wizard approached the bar and hopped easily up onto a stool like it wasn’t just about taller than he was and as if he didn’t look like he was nearly two hundred, and by the time Pansy finished putting his breakfast together, Draco was scraping the last of the egg off his plate and sliding off his stool.

“Thanks for the breakfast, Pans,” he said, placing the first coins he could grab onto the counter.

“That’s-“

“Too much, I know, I haven’t the time to fish for exact change.” Pansy gave him a very fond look, and Draco busied himself charming away any crumbs that might have dropped onto his robes. So it was entirely too much money. Whether the extra went to Pansy or to the Leaky, it was a donation Draco was willing to make. It wasn’t as though money was anything the Malfoys were low on. “I’ll tell you anything I find out. If that’s anything at all, of course.”

“Of course,” Pansy replied, and leaned across the counter again, this time to peck Draco on the cheek. Draco did the same for her.

Then Draco was walking as briskly as he could out the back door and into Diagon Alley. It was time to meet George Weasley.

Draco’s heart seemed to be jumping in his chest as he walked, and he tried very hard to school his features into a calm, businesslike expression. He _hoped_ he was going to be meeting with George Weasley. A terrible thought had occurred to him in the middle of the night, and it hadn’t quite left.

Even though it had been George who signed the contract with Honeydukes, that might have been simply because he was the owner of Weasleys’, rather than because he was the one working on the amusement park. There was another employee at Weasleys’ to consider: Ronald.

Draco took a deep breath and worked harder at his facial expression. The best that could be said about him and Ronald Weasley together was that they didn’t wish each other dead, which really was not much of a place to start a business relationship.

George Weasley on the other hand… well, George didn’t like him, but they simply didn’t share the same history as he did with Ronald. George was also familiar with the process that went into inventing new charms and potions - had even invented a few sweets himself - and would therefore probably be reasonable in his expectations, at least. Draco did wonder why they needed him at all, really, considering that he knew George to be more than capable of inventing any charmed sweets he wanted. Perhaps he wanted the Honeydukes name backing them up, though, or simply didn’t have time between building horrible, looping railcart tracks.

More likely than not, of course, both George and Ronald would be working on the amusement park, since it sounded like a massive undertaking. Still, Draco hoped that it would be George he was meeting with today.

Draco also hoped that George wouldn’t take one look at him and laugh him out of the shop. Or worse, break the contract with Honeydukes. He rather liked his job, and didn’t want to be fired for being a detriment to the company. He didn’t think Pamela deserved to be fired either, though this was all her fault. She _could_ have just assigned the project to Whitby.

It was only after several seconds that Draco realized he’d stopped cold in the middle of the street outside Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes, his body chilled with nerves, and… was he _quivering_? Well, that was just entirely fucking unacceptable. Draco took another deep breath, attempted to shove a smile onto his face, and walked into Weasleys’.

Mercy of mercies, George Weasley was the one who approached him as he entered. Less mercifully, Ronald Weasley was standing behind the counter, looking… looking as though he was trying very hard not to laugh aloud, actually. Both wore the woefully magenta robes that constituted the Wizard Wheezes uniform. The two exchanged a glance that only served to make Ronald laugh harder. Draco was only five steps into Weasley territory, and already felt miles out of his depth.

George looked back at Draco, a bemused smile on his face. “Malfoy. Are you…?”

With a flick of his wrist, Draco summoned his business card. It was lucky he still remembered how - he hardly ever had an opportunity to use the things. “Magical Product Developer for Honeydukes, yes. I… yes.”

A few seconds passed as George looked at the card. Draco wasn’t sure he was actually reading it, it looked more like he was staring at the thing in mild shock. Draco knew the feeling. The only thing that cut the awkward silence of the moment was Ronald across the room, slowly getting his giggling fit under control. Draco really did not know what his life had come to, that he would be in any capacity grateful for the Weasel laughing at him. Or at least, that’s what he assumed Ronald was laughing at. He wasn’t entirely sure about anything at that particular moment, though.

“Well then,” George said, looking back up at him and tucking the card into a pocket. “Good to-“ he faltered, and so did Draco’s mildly petrified smile. A shorter, but much more painfully awkward moment passed. “No need for introductions then, eh?” George tried again, and cracked a wide, roguish grin that Draco was fairly certain he usually reserved for customers, or possibly people he intended to seduce, or generally anyone who _wasn’t_ Draco Malfoy.

The fact that it worked on him was utterly galling, but it wasn’t as though George could see the funny flutter-thump his heart did, though Draco wondered if he could feel it, as they shook hands.

“So, the plan for today: I’ll take you to the park site, you get the grand tour to get the feel of the place, then discussion of ideas for the sweets. Well, discussion of what isn’t covered during the tour. Sound good?”

Draco was not so sure it did sound good, to be honest. He was going to the park? He was getting the tour? Was he going to have to ride one of those… things? “Sounds good,” he replied instead. Lying seemed like the right course of action just then.

George nodded at him smartly. “This way then, the floo is in the back.”

“Malfoy,” Ronald greeted as George led him past the counter.

“Weasley,” Draco replied. Ronald still seemed terribly amused by something, and it was throwing Draco off-balance. He didn’t have much time to dwell on it, though, as George ushered him into the back room of the shop, where the fire was crackling away and waiting for them.

“The address is Weasley Park,” George said as he grabbed a handful of the floo powder.

“Weasley Park?” It seemed so… plain, Draco thought. Not at all what he’d expected of them.

George threw a half-smile over his shoulder, as if reading Draco’s mind. “We haven’t settled on the real name yet, and it seemed like a simple enough address for the time being.”

“Ah, well that makes sense.”

George hesitated for a moment, then threw the powder into the fire and was whisked away with a call of, “Weasley Park!”

Draco went after him, the name rolling off his tongue uneasily. Just before he shot away, he thought he could hear Ronald remark, “Oh, this is going to be fun.”

Draco was really, _really_ not so sure.

* * *

When Draco stumbled out of the floo, it was into a large, almost entirely bare room. The ceiling was high, the windows tall. He could see where rugs had sat on the floors for many years, the shine of the dark, expensive wood still preserved in those places. He was almost sure he’d never been here before, but… there was something vaguely familiar about it, almost as if someone had stripped the sitting room in the Manor. The original furniture of the room had all been removed, but a set of mismatched chairs sat near the windows on the other end of the room in a loose circle, and there was some sort of funny box - it looked very Muggle, Draco thought - sitting against the wall nearby.

“Welcome to Weasley Park headquarters,” George said, motioning to the group of chairs and the house at large. Draco nodded politely at him. “It’s temporary, until we build a proper office.” George started leading him out of the room and across the hall. “Well, we think. A lot of us have grown rather fond of this old place. Oi,” George stopped abruptly just after passing through the high, arched entrance of the room across the hall, and it was a close thing that Draco didn’t run right into him. “Your Honeydukes candy-maker is here, Mister Project Director.”

Project Director? Draco felt a fresh stab of unease. If not George, and not Ronald, then who? He could have just stepped around George and looked, the archway was plenty wide enough, but his feet didn’t seem to want to go anywhere just then.

“Oh! Thanks, George. Send ‘em in.”

Draco’s breath caught in his chest. That voice. No. It couldn’t be, no it-

-it absolutely _could_ be, oh no oh _no_.

George turned that same roguish smile from before on him, but this time Draco’s heart was too busy pounding to flutter in his chest. “Right this way,” he said, a barely suppressed laugh in his voice, and stepped aside to let Draco pass. Now Draco’s feet seemed to move on their own, and oh fuck, oh no, _this_ was why Ronald had been laughing at him, and he wasn’t even going to have a chance to kill Pamela as she so rightly deserved, because he was going to die right here, right now, in this room, as soon as he laid eyes on-

“Potter,” Draco breathed.

“Malfoy?”

Harry Potter was seated in a cheap folding chair at a cheap folding card table in the middle of the large, empty room that the back of Draco’s mind thought might have been the house’s dining room, at one point. He was dressed in what Draco thought were casual Muggle clothes, a magenta Weasleys’ robe draped carelessly over the back of his chair. His hair was as messy as ever, his glasses the same distinctive round shape. He seemed surprised to see Draco, but looked nowhere near as shocked as Draco felt to see him, which Draco felt was unfair, really, as he would have had every reason to guess Potter would be involved in this thing, had he thought about it, but Potter had next to no reason to suppose it would be Draco walking through his door.

“Seriously?” Potter directed this at George, and a moment later, as Draco continued to stand stupidly, the business card Draco had given George earlier floated past his ear. Potter studied it - actually seemed to read the thing - before looking back up at Draco. “Huh.”

Potter came around the table. He was broader than Draco remembered. He extended a hand.

“Well, good to work with you, Malfoy.” His voice was deeper than Draco remembered, too.

Draco stared at Potter’s hand for just a split second, nearly eighteen years of acquaintance with Potter hitting him like the entire ocean crashing down on his head. Draco took Potter’s hand and looked back up to his face. Potter’s green eyes smiled at him, warm and genuine. Draco felt like an ant.

“The same to you, Potter.” Draco wasn’t sure how he had managed to speak, let alone sound professional and confident. When Potter let go of his hand, Draco’s skin tingled.

“I’ll head back to the shop.” Draco distantly registered George’s voice behind him and tried to remind himself how to breathe. It wouldn’t do to asphyxiate on his own shame in the middle of Potter’s office. Or perhaps it was a meeting room? Whichever. “Ron’ll be through in a bit to have a go at the rapids.”

Potter’s expression turned just a bit exasperated. “I hope he has better luck than I did. Still can’t think of who to ask who might have a better idea of how to make it work.”

Draco suddenly realized that he was still staring into Potter’s face, his back to George, standing between them as they conversed. He hurriedly stepped to the side.

George shrugged. “We’ll figure it out, eventually.”

Potter’s exasperated smile transformed into a mild grimace. “Eventually.” Then he shook his head and smiled again. “See you in a couple hours?”

“Yeah, call me when you’re done with the tour and I’ll come talk candy.”

Potter nodded, smile widening. “I will.”

With one last smile at Potter and a glance at Draco, George departed.

Draco was alone with Potter.

Potter looked at Draco. Draco’s breath bottled up in his chest. He wasn’t sure how he was going to live through this assignment, if he stopped breathing every time Potter looked at him.

“So,” Potter began, punctuating the word with a clap. Had Potter’s hands always been so large? “Before we start the tour, do you have any questions? Most people don’t, but,” Potter smiled at him, a slightly rueful, private smile, and really what the _fuck_ , “I get the feeling you might.”

Draco didn’t, was the funny thing. Though that might just have been because every single one of his thoughts and emotions at the moment was expressible as a wordless interrobang.

After casting about silently for what felt like an eternity, Draco blurted the first thing he could think of. “How did-“ it came out terribly strangled, and Draco cleared his throat and tried again. “How did you end up… doing this?”

Potter grinned, then looked away, eyes on a memory. “Three years ago, I took Teddy - my godson - to Alton Towers."

Draco didn’t know what Alton Towers was, but assumed it was an amusement park.

“It was brilliant. Teddy fell in love with it - well, of course he did, he was eight - but, I did too. Just sort of thought to myself, look at how great this is, look at all these people having fun! The wizarding world could use something like this.” Potter shrugged.

It was strange, but… Draco could actually feel a vague sense of kinship with Potter on that. After the war, there wasn’t anything he could do to really make up for what he’d done. Even if he’d been cut out to be an Auror, the Aurors wouldn’t have wanted him, and the last thing in the world that was going to go well was him going into politics. But with Honeydukes, he could put his potions and charms skills to work, and if he made people smile with the sweets he invented, well… it was a long way from atonement, but it wasn’t absolutely nothing.

Instead of saying any of this, Draco made a wordless noise of understanding and nodded.

Potter gave him a speculative look, as if he were considering asking a question of his own, but in the end settled on, “Is that all?”

“Yes. Shall we…?” Draco motioned vaguely in the direction he thought the door was in.

Potter smiled again. Draco didn’t remember him smiling quite so much, before. “Yeah, let’s go.”

Draco didn’t know what to expect when he left the house, though part of him thought he’d come face-to-face with a railcart, be ushered into it, and then he was going to pass out in Potter’s presence, and wouldn’t that just be a delightful experience. What Draco didn’t expect was to immediately come face-to-face with a large stone wall.

Draco glanced back over his shoulder. He didn’t think he’d seen this through the windows of the house. Sunlight had been spilling in, he was sure of it, but from outside, the wall seemed to be casting a shadow over the house. Spelled windows, he supposed?

Potter followed him, shrugging on his magenta Weasleys’ robe. “Yeah, it got really gloomy in the house once we built the castle,” he said, apparently reading Draco’s mind, “So we charmed the windows to ignore the castle walls.” He pulled out his wand, and Draco’s hand itched to grab his own, an echo of a time long past, but instead he simply stepped out of Potter’s way as he descended the front steps of the house.

Draco took another look at the house. It didn’t seem any more familiar from the outside, but… there was still something about it. It was newer than the Manor by quite a bit, probably built in the 1800s, but there were details here and there that made Draco think it definitely had to have been an old pure-blood property.

“Potter,” Draco began, but at that moment Potter opened the large doors in the wall and walked through. Draco hurried after him and…

…the world opened up in front of his eyes. They were on a small, grassy rise, and spread out in front of them, just about as far as Draco could see, were great, huge colourful things like Draco had never laid eyes on before. A half-constructed traintrack suspended high in the air on top of great metal poles dominated the vista to the right, another one directly ahead but much farther in the distance. There were strange many-legged metal things, quaint little shops with brightly-painted roofs, gardens just beginning to bloom, and little paved pathways twisting between everything. Dominating it all, standing right in the centre, where all paths lead, was an enormous upright wheel, gleaming in the sun.

Draco barely realized he’d stopped to stare until he turned to look at Potter, who was standing beside him and watching him with great interest.

“Yeah?” Potter’s voice came out almost as a whisper. “What d’you think?”

Draco looked back over the park. There was too much there for him to see, much less comprehend. And Potter had dreamed it up. _Potter_ had _built_ it. “I have no idea what any of this is,” he said without meaning to, breathless, nearly laughing. He twisted to look at the castle. “But it’s very… impressive- is that Hogwarts?”

Potter actually did laugh. “Yeah, it is,” he replied, twisting his own head around to look up at the stone brick structure. “Scale model. Empty, except the house. But the point is for it to look good from the outside, anyway.”

The house. Draco remembered the question he’d been intending to ask before. “Potter, where did this come from? Whose house- whose land is this?” It was _enormous_ , at least as big as the Manor’s property, if not more.

“Millicent Bulstrode wanted to sell off her family’s lands, and she liked the idea of the park, so we got sort of a bargain. The only condition was that we don’t demolish the house, so we built the castle around it and made it part of our train ride.”

Millicent Bulstrode again? Draco thought back to his conversation with Pansy and thought that while he was _almost_ unsurprised that Bulstrode had agreed to have Potter turn her family’s ancestral lands into an amusement park, he was surprised that he hadn’t heard a thing about the sale. Usually that sort of gossip made its way to him - via mother, or Pansy, or _someone_.

“I hadn’t heard,” he commented quietly, staring back over the park again.

“Yeah, you wouldn’t have,” Potter replied. Draco gave him a look, but Potter didn’t seem to notice. That, or he’d become immune to Draco’s _looks_ over the years. Draco wouldn’t have been surprised if it was either. “It’s still a secret - the park, that is. We don’t want to announce it and then keep people waiting because it’s not ready yet. And people would be curious if they heard that Millicent had sold to me, or to Wizard Wheezes, so we agreed to keep the whole thing quiet until the announcement.”

Still, Draco was surprised he hadn’t heard so much as a rumour. There were clearly people involved here - how many chairs had he seen in the sitting room? Eight? Plus whoever was building those terrifying traintracks; he would be surprised if Potter was doing it personally, unless the man was some sort of omnitalented demigod. Draco’s eyes roamed over the park. Omnitalented demigod wasn’t something Draco was prepared to rule out at that moment, actually.

Perhaps there were rumours, though. He frequently buried himself in his work for the express purpose of tuning out the world outside his little corridor of charmed sweets and moderately friendly coworkers. Now that he thought of it, perhaps that dedication to his job was why he was standing on this hilltop instead of hearing rumours from Blaise or Theodore at the pub.

Draco looked over at Potter. He was staring out at the park, not at all concerned that he was alone with Draco. Working with the Weasleys, that alone was going to be very strange. But Potter? It was surreal.

* * *

The tour took up the entire rest of the morning. Draco saw a giant rainbow-coloured slide, strange and only halfway set-up games, bright little shops with nothing inside yet, and a lovingly replicated old-fashioned miniature train station. Something Potter called “Bumper Bubbles” Draco couldn’t quite understand, and he frowned at the large, netted-off area until Potter laughed and told him he’d show Draco how it worked another time, when the kids were there.

“The kids?” Draco asked in spite of himself.

“Teddy, plus my nieces and nephews,” Potter replied.

Oh.

“I hadn’t heard you’d married, Potter. Was it to…” Draco struggled for the name, coming up only with ‘Weaslette’ for a horrifically long moment. “Ginevra? Or perhaps that other Weasley, the dragon tamer?” Draco wasn’t sure why the revelation that Potter was married needled him so much, but he was having quite a time keeping his tone conversational.

“Charlie?” Potter laughed, looking up at the sky and apparently considering the idea. “Yeah, that would be pretty great. Could go for that. No, I’m not married.” Draco was also not sure why that relieved him so much. “All the Weasleys’ kids just sort of adopted me as their honorary uncle. It doesn’t hurt that as far as they’re concerned, I’m building them the biggest playground ever.” Potter turned and grinned at Draco then. It was the sort of grin that let Draco know that Potter was almost certainly the sort of “uncle” who wound the children up with toys and sugar before sending them home to their hapless parents.

When the painted cobbles at the edge of the path changed from yellow to green, Potter told him they were in the water-themed area of the park. Draco could have guessed, had anyone asked - the border gardens in this section of the park were liberally strewn with miniature fountains and tiny waterfalls. Potter led him quickly past something that looked like a dry artificial riverbed.

“That’s the Roiling Rapids. It doesn’t work yet, don’t pay it any mind.”

Draco though, walking behind Potter, did crane his neck somewhat to try to get a better look.

The next thing they looked at Potter called “the log flume,” and as soon as Potter explained that the strange track was meant to be filled with water, Draco blurted,

“Is this the one where you go over a waterfall in a hollowed-out log?”

Potter stared at him for a moment, startled. “Are you… are you _scared_?”

“Of course I’m not scared.”

He was, in fact, scared.

Potter was still studying him, green eyes raking over Draco’s face. Heat began to rise in Draco’s cheeks. “Would you like a closer look?”

“No! I mean,” Draco cleared his throat.

Potter shook his head. “Not with water, just with brooms. To see how it works.”

Draco eyed the dry track warily. “No thank you, Potter.”

There wasn’t a hint of a quaver in his voice. Definitely not.

Potter stared at him, utterly bemused, for what felt like hours. Then, suddenly, he swept Draco around with an arm slung about his shoulders and led him away. “In any case, I assure you that we here at Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes World test every ride to the utmost, and that all are perfectly safe for wizard and Muggle alike.” Potter aimed a cheesy grin at him.

Draco thought that Potter’s trustworthy businessman voice would have been rather funny, were he not rapidly running out of air in his lungs. Why in the name of _Merlin_ was Potter touching him with such familiarity?

“I thought the park didn’t have a name yet.” Draco’s voice came out extremely strangled; there was really no denying it.

Potter looked at him, seemed to take the hint, and gingerly lifted his arm away. Draco tried to be subtle about his gasp for breath.

“It’s a matter of debate,” Potter said, looking in entirely the opposite direction from Draco. “I like Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes World, but Ron thinks the name is too long at it should just be Wizard Wheezes World. George keeps trying to add more words, and most of the staff has joined in because they think it’s funny - it is, a bit. Hermione thinks we should drop the alliteration entirely. Don’t even get me started on trying to name the different sections of the park. The only thing we’ve all agreed on is that the shopping district should be called Jovi Alley, because of the pun.”

Draco didn’t get the pun.

The next section, with purple-lined paths, turned out to be Jovi Alley, which was mostly restaurants and shops on a single main street stretching between the entrance of the park and the giant wheel at the centre. The street was quite a bit wider than any of the paths before, splitting around a long, rectangular pool.

“It’s a fountain,” Potter said when he noticed Draco looking, and with a wave of his wand the surface of the water broke and spires shot up, each easily Draco’s own height. “The ones in the middle form shapes,” Potter pointed to where two spires of water were joining together to make a heart, “But the rest are ordinary. They light up at night.” When Potter turned the fountain off again, Draco’s ears kept ringing for a few minutes with the sound of falling water.

Potter also pointed out the shop that Honeydukes had claimed along the main street - it was one of the larger ones, with a mostly glass storefront and a cheerful yellow roof. Draco poked about the empty space curiously. It was easy to imagine the place filled with candy (barrels of toffee here) and smiling customers (a fudge counter over there, perhaps). When he turned back around to leave, he found Potter leaning in the open doorway, watching him and looking very thoughtful. Draco sniffed and stuck his nose in the air, an old habit, but it seemed to make Potter smile in response.

Just after they passed into the blue section of the park that Potter identified as “the arcade” (though the place had no arches and no roof, so Draco frankly had no idea what he was on about), they came up to the great monster of twisting track that Draco had seen from all the way across the park. Draco’s neck protested as he leaned his head back to look up at the thing. It was… big.

Bigger than he’d imagined from his coworkers’ stories.

“This,” Potter said, his voice bursting with pride, “Is the first of our roller coasters, Seeker’s Flight.” He was grinning and bright-eyed as he stared up at it.

He wasn’t even looking at Draco, and it was still the most intimidating Potter had ever been. A thought passed through Draco’s head, unbidden, that perhaps he’d been right earlier and that Potter ought to marry Charlie Weasley - they could bond over their love of giant, treacherous things.

“You’re scared again,” Potter said the moment he turned back to Draco. It wasn’t a question. “Anyone else I’d understand, but… Malfoy, you play Quidditch.”

Draco, in fact, had not played Quidditch since Hogwarts, but nevertheless he failed to see the point.

“This thing goes barely as high or fast as we did, on brooms, as twelve-year-olds. And it doesn’t have Bludgers.”

“You have _control_ over a broom, Potter. This thing…”

Potter stared at him. Draco crossed his arms tightly over his chest, not sure if he felt more embarrassed that he was afraid of something that didn’t even begin to bother Potter, or annoyed that Potter wasn’t afraid of something that was so obviously a deathtrap. There was just a hint of the old animosity in it, and even though Draco hadn’t felt that way towards Potter in years it was so familiar, and Draco felt so desperately out of his element, that he grabbed onto it with both hands.

A spark flared in Potter’s eyes. “You wait right there.” Potter stalked away towards the small gate that Draco was sure would do a very poor job of keeping people away from the monstrous track if and when it was meant to. As he went, he thrust a hand out roughly toward nothing at all. Draco chewed his lip. Wandless magic?

Draco followed after him, just to be contrary.

The boarding point was actually set a ways back from the path, framed by a wooden platform. A set of five linked railcarts sat on the track. But, well, they weren’t really railcarts at all, were they? They had seats - two across and two deep, per cart - and each was done up with bars and straps and other odd things that Draco assumed were to keep riders in their seats. What was it Potter had said before? “Perfectly safe for wizard and Muggle alike”?

Potter vaulted over the odd little train and approached a podium on the other side of the platform, throwing Draco a deeply unimpressed look. He knelt behind the thing, and a few seconds later, everything around them came to life.

Golden balls of light lit up overhead and all along the track as far as Draco could see. The train, too, lit up; streaks of gold shimmered along the sides of the carts, vivid against the bright red. Draco didn’t know how he’d missed that they were Gryffindor colours. Music played from somewhere; a cheerful, triumphant tune that Draco was sure he’d heard before.

“Since you’re here,” Potter said, and his voice resounded loudly from all sides. Potter stepped away from the podium and headed for the train. “Ah, sorry. Localised _Sonorus_. Anyway, since you’re here, have a look at this.” Potter pulled out his wand and Draco instinctively took a step back, hand flying to his own wand. Potter gave him another look, and Draco didn’t think it was possible for someone to look any more monumentally unimpressed.

Potter made a complicated series of movements with his wand, pointing at the train. He mouthed words, but didn’t seem to quite give voice to them. Then he gave a strong flick of his wand and… _something_ appeared in one of the seats of the frontmost cart of the train. It wasn’t human, but it was human-shaped, and about the size of an adult man. A large doll, perhaps? The thing set Draco’s nerves on edge. It had no _face_.

Potter flicked his wand again, and this time a tiny doll, the size and shape of a house-elf, appeared in the other front seat. One more flick, and a doll the size of Hagrid filled the entire rear two seats, which… Draco blinked. The rear seats were suddenly one seat, it seemed, with appropriately-sized bars and straps and whatnot. The entire cart seemed to have widened to fit its “passenger”, though at the same time it clearly hadn’t, as the front seats hadn’t widened in response, and the exterior of the cart hadn’t changed shape. Draco noticed, looking at the front seats, that the one containing the “house-elf” had raised so that it could “see” out of the cart, and that the straps were all house-elf-sized as well.

Draco looked up at Potter.

“Crash-test dummy conjuring spell. Hermione invented it. If any harm comes to the dummies, you can tell because they turn red where they were ‘injured’. These things aren’t resilient, either, they’re originally made by Muggles to test the safety of vehicles for their own use.” Potter paused, and looked up at him. “Every ride in the park, including the children’s rides, are tested for safety of humans, elves, and, er…” he looked at the Hagrid doll. “Very large humans.”

Draco scoffed. “Just say ‘half-giants’, Potter.”

“Well sorry,” Potter said, not sounding sorry at all, “I couldn’t remember if you knew. Yes, half-giants, then. Also most other magical beings and similar, though we couldn’t manage centaurs in most cases. Not that they really want to come.”

Potter huffed and, with a wave of his wand, all the straps buckled and the bars moved into place, including the ones on all the empty seats. Potter went back over to the podium, tapped the top with his wand, and the train started moving away, not very quickly at all Draco thought. Potter hopped back over the track and started walking back out the way they’d come in.

“Don’t do what I just did, by the way. Only exit the rides via the designated exits. Usually a secondary train will move into place once the first one’s gone, but we’re still putting the charms together on the B-train.”

When they reached the path, a pair of brooms were waiting for them there. Potter climbed onto one immediately.

“Come on,” he said, then shot off into the air. Part of Draco wanted to stay right where he was, just for the sake of being difficult.

When Draco joined him, Potter pointed toward the track, where the train was crawling up a large hill.

“Why is it so slow?” Draco asked. “Because of Hagrid?”

“No, it’s made to imitate Muggle roller coasters, which are usually pulled up hills by chains. This one technically works based on the same system as the carts under Gringotts, so it could take the hills fast, but that’s not the point - the suspense is part of the experience. If you want to see one really take off, I’ll take you to see The Runespoor next.” Potter grinned an unsettling grin at him.

Draco looked back to the track just in time to see the train reach the top of the hill, pause for a moment that made Draco squeeze the handle of his broom, and then it was rattling down the track.

It really wasn’t all _that_ fast, Draco reluctantly had to admit, not compared to chasing a Snitch. It wasn’t slow by any means, and Draco was sure the passengers would get a robust faceful of wind, but Draco got the impression that most of what was propelling the train was gravity, with just a little magic to get the thing through the ridiculous number of twists and turns and loops the track contained. Just at the end of the track there was one near-vertical drop that made Draco’s heart pound as he watched the train race down it, but then the train pulled back into the station and that was all.

Draco was silent as he followed Potter back to the platform, as Potter showed him the unmarked dummies and then Vanished them, and as Potter returned to the podium and deactivated the lights and music.

It was only once they were back on the path again and Potter had instructed the brooms to return to where he’d Summoned them from, that Draco spoke.

“So are you intending to give that little demonstration to everyone who doubts your contraptions?” Draco hadn’t meant for it to come out so antagonistic, but he didn’t really regret that it had.

Potter sighed and turned to face him with his whole body, his expression serious and cold. On second thought, Draco did regret the way that sentence had come out. In fact, he regretted ever leaving the hill with the scale-model Hogwarts and the old Bulstrode house. He and Potter had been getting on just _fine_ up there, and they probably would have continued to do so if they’d just _stayed_ up there and discussed sweets.

“No,” Potter eventually said. “No, I’m not. Once the park is open, the rides will all be running and anyone who has doubts can just watch and see for themselves. But you,” Potter caught Draco’s gaze and held it hostage with his intense, horribly green eyes. “You, Malfoy, are here early. And if you were to go about and spread rumours about how this place is dangerous, you could really fuck things up for us.”

Potter broke his hold on Draco’s eyes. Distantly, Draco wondered if he’d ever be able to breathe properly again after the day he was having.

“Theme parks are always a little dangerous,” Potter went on. “It comes with the territory. If the rides are exciting, they’re going to be a little dangerous. More so for Muggles than wizards. And that’s why it’s the duty of the people who run the park and the people who make the rides - not usually the same people, but in this case it is - to make sure that everything works right and that it’s as safe as it can possibly be.

“And we are all doing our very best to make sure that’s the case. Do you get that?”

Draco nodded silently. He wasn’t sure he trusted his voice just then.

“I’d really like to hear you say it.”

“Yes,” and Draco’s voice cracked just like he’d thought it would. “I get that.” Potter turned to stare at him and Draco deflated, which was quite a feat as far as he was concerned, since he hadn’t thought there was so much as a breath of air left in his body. “Look, Potter, I-“ Potter’s eyes widened a fraction. “I’m sorry. I actually only found out that places like this existed yesterday, when I received the assignment. It’s all a bit overwhelming, even without factoring you and the Weasleys into the mix.” Potter ducked his head. “But still, that’s… that’s no good reason for me to have been rude, and I’m sorry.”

Potter ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have teased you for being scared. Especially since you just said earlier that you didn’t know what this stuff was.” Potter looked up at the roller coaster. “I’ve been really wrapped up in this project for the last couple years, and… I guess I’m nervous people won’t like it. But I know that not everyone has to like every ride here, that’s why there’s a variety. Even if these big ones are _my_ favourites.” Potter looked back at him and, yeah, Draco was pretty sure his lungs were never going to recover from this day. “Can we try again? Friends?” Potter held out his hand.

Draco’s heart kicked in his chest like a nervous donkey. He sniffed. “Perhaps we should start with colleagues first.”

Potter’s tentative smile widened. “Colleagues, then?” He held his hand out a little farther. Draco took it. Potter’s hand was warm, and large, and his grip firm but not tight, and this was the same hand Draco had seen him cast wandlessly with earlier, and Draco swore he could feel that power thrumming under Potter’s skin.

When Potter let go he looked thoughtful for a moment, then his lips stretched into a wide, mischievous smile. “Would you like to see a really scary one? Put the rest in perspective?”

Ten minutes later, The Runespoor shot away from its eerie indoor platform with such a bang that it drowned out Draco’s shout of “ _fuck!_ ”

“Ron designed this one,” Potter told him while they watched through an observation window as the train roared around its underground track. “With some input from Charlie. It’s the only ride we have that’s designed to be daunting even for Quidditch players and broom racers. It’s actually a smooth ride, we developed an entire magical propulsion and cushioning system specially for it, it’s just… very, very fast.”

Draco just gaped.

Afterward, when Potter asked, “So, what do you think?” Draco turned and walked quickly toward the exit, gesturing emphatically with his arms.

“No. _No_. Never. Not in a million years.”

Potter laughed at him then, but it was different from before.

* * *

The last ride they looked at before returning to the Bulstrode house was the half-constructed roller coaster that Draco had seen from up on the hill. If he’d thought that Seeker’s Flight was monstrous, this one was a behemoth, stretching much higher and roaming well out of sight. Potter called it The Ridgeback.

The ferris wheel was the centrepiece of the park, Potter explained, but The Ridgeback was the crown jewel - the largest of the rides and the first he’d come up with while designing the park - and if nothing else, he wanted a candy themed after it.

Suddenly, Draco was back in his element, even as they passed by plenty more things that Draco had no name for, including a tall metal spire that Draco thought might have been the chair-drop ride that Clearwater seemed so fond of.

“To be honest, after my coworkers described roller coasters to me,” Draco was saying as they entered the house, “the only thing I could think of as an appropriate candy was a railcart-shaped chocolate with a blood-red raspberry filling, and-“

“No,” Potter said, a sort of horrified delight all over his face.

“Yes,” Draco insisted, “And- oh.”

Draco cut off, suddenly very self-aware. Standing in Potter’s office - or the meeting room, or whatever - were Neville Longbottom and Dean Thomas. They had produced a second card table and two more chairs from somewhere, and had been in the middle of laying out platters of sandwiches and salad when Draco and Potter had walked in. Both were staring at Draco.

“Nev! You’re here early!” Potter said rather loudly, walking towards Longbottom and apparently deciding to cheerfully ignore the erumpent in the room.

“Yeah,” Longbottom replied, dragging his eyes away from Draco. “Don’t have any classes this afternoon, so figured I’d bring lunch.”

Potter leaned in towards Longbottom just slightly, and for a bewildered moment Draco thought, his heart doing some sort of peculiar flip-flop as he watched, that they were going to kiss, and what in the world was that all about, then?

Instead, Potter grinned and said, voice gravelly, “Hogwarts food?”

Longbottom snorted and didn’t move an inch, looking extraordinarily fond and as though this was all very normal. “Hogwarts food,” he confirmed.

“Oh, Nev,” Potter looked outright besotted, “I could just _kiss_ you.”

Draco made a valiant effort not to choke on air. Thomas shook his head and, apparently deciding Draco was no threat, went back to pulling plates out of a large bag.

“Are you going to, then?” Longbottom’s tone was light and teasing. “You always say you will, but you never follow through.”

A dozen years ago, if anyone had told Draco that he would expire due to watching Potter and Longbottom flirt shamelessly… he probably would have agreed that sounded plausible, actually, but not for the same reason, not at all.

A loud scoff came from right beside Draco, and Draco nearly jumped out of his skin. He had not heard Ronald Weasley approach.

“Are we doing this again? Break it up, you two! Break it up! Or get a room. I don’t need you getting hero hormones all over the food.” Ronald was grinning, and spared Draco a glance as he headed into the room. “Hey, Malfoy.”

“Weasley,” Draco responded, and oh, now Longbottom was looking at him again.

It wasn’t as though he never saw Longbottom. Pansy worked with Hannah, and Hannah was married to Longbottom, so Draco had seen him across the room plenty of times at the Leaky Cauldron. He’d had time to absorb that Longbottom had at some point become severely bloody tall and fit (really, it ought to be _illegal_ to be so fit), and he knew that Longbottom taught Herbology at Hogwarts these days, and that Pansy had once walked in on him and Hannah snogging in the kitchen at the Leaky (and so much for not getting hero hormones in the food). Still, generally existing in the same space as Longbottom was far from the same thing as having Longbottom’s attention focused on him.

“So,” Longbottom began, and glanced at Potter.

“Right! Right, Nev and Dean, Malfoy is our Honeydukes sweets-maker. Malfoy, Neville is our garden designer and head gardener, Dean is our graphic designer and general aesthetic consultant.”

Across the room, Thomas gave Draco a cursory nod and went back to conversing with Ronald. Longbottom eyed Draco with an expression that Draco couldn’t read.

“I’d heard from Hannah you worked for Honeydukes, but it didn’t occur to me you might end up here.” Longbottom humphed and shrugged. “Are you all right, Malfoy? Get a little bit of sun out there today? You’re looking sort of… red.” Longbottom’s tone was completely genuine, but there was something in the quirk of his mouth and the sharp edge to his gaze that let Draco know that Longbottom, of all people, knew what sunburn looked like, and that he recognized that Draco’s red face had nothing to do with it.

“Wha- did you?” Potter rounded on Draco. “I didn’t think to bring sunscreen, it’s only April. S’pose I should’ve thought, with your complexion…”

“I’m fine, really.” That Draco’s face continued to heat under Potter’s scrutiny did not seem to help matters at all.

“I see what Nev means, though, you are really red.”

“Malfoy got sunburned? In _April_?” That was George, who must have arrived via the floo. He gave Draco a look-over as he shouldered past the group blocking the archway.

“I’m _fine_.”

Longbottom turned back to the tables, bemused. Potter opened his mouth, ostensibly to object again judging from his expression, but Longbottom cut in with, “Lunch is all ready. Come on and sit down, you lot.”

There were only six of them altogether, so Draco ultimately ended up seated right next to more than half of the group, with Longbottom on his right, Potter on his left at the end of the table, and Ronald across from him. The sandwiches turned out to be chicken - the salad tasted as fresh as if had all been in a garden an hour ago - and there was a large pitcher of pumpkin juice. It was utterly fantastic, and Draco was surprised to realize that he’d forgotten how good Hogwarts food was. He could see why Potter had been tempted to kiss Longbottom for bringing it.

The others all chattered amongst themselves, and Draco was more than content to sit quietly and let them, hearing about the last Quidditch game Ginevra’s team had played, goings-on at Hogwarts, and the new word that Ronald’s two-year-old daughter had learned (she’d learned it from George, and it was not a polite word). When the sandwiches were nearly gone and the salad bowl was empty, Longbottom turned a fond look on Potter and said,

“Oh, the Hogwarts elves send their regards.”

Potter smiled. “Send them mine, too, if you don’t mind. This was wonderful.” Draco vaguely wondered what sort of relationship Potter had with the Hogwarts house-elves.

“Oi, but not to the rest of us?” George objected. “Rude little buggers.”

Then, for the first time since they’d sat down, someone caught Draco’s confused expression and spoke to him directly. Of course, it was Potter.

“We worked out a contract with the Free Elves’ Union to cover most of the positions once the park’s open. There’s kind of a lot of spots to fill, so we got,” Potter laughed, seeming mildly embarrassed. “We got kind of famous among elves.”

“What he means,” George added, “Is that we instantly became the second-largest employer of free elves in wizarding Britain. And they still don’t send their regards to me! It’s an injustice!”

“I can send them your regards too, if you want,” Longbottom offered.

George waved him off. “It’s not the same if they only acknowledge me because I’ve sent my regards first.”

Longbottom shook his head.

“Speaking of people who work here,” Draco began, and the room immediately fell silent. Heat crept up his neck, and Draco sat ramrod straight. He directed his question to an indistinct spot between Potter and Weasley. “Who is it that’s been building the…” Draco struggled for the word, and made a swooping gesture with his hands.

“The roller coasters?” Thomas provided.

“Yes, those. They’re… impressive,” Draco finished lamely.

“We are,” Ronald answered after a thick, silent moment had passed. “All of us,” he motioned at everyone at the table, “Plus the others that join in on weekends. Hermione, Percy, Seamus, Luna-“

“Charlie has been showing up every Saturday for so long that he says at this point the Ministry just sends him a Portkey every week without him even asking,” George added.

“-Ginny and Oliver, if they don’t have games. Generally just everyone who rebuilt Hogwarts after the battle.”

“One time McGonagall showed up,” Thomas said, eyebrows raised. “ _That_ was an experience.” Draco could only imagine.

“Speaking of roller coasters, I saw Seeker’s Flight light up earlier,” Ronald said. “Did you try it out?”

Draco felt his face flush. “I- no. I did watch. See how it worked.” He glanced at Potter, who also seemed rather pink. Ronald squinted at them but, thank Merlin, didn’t say anything. “I also watched The Runespoor,” he added quickly, remembering that Potter had said Ronald designed that one.

“Yeah?” Ronald put an elbow on the table and leaned forward, face interested and just a tiny bit wicked. “What did you think?”

Draco shuddered, and Ronald burst out laughing.

“Good,” Ronald said, mid-laugh. “That’s the idea.”

It was funny, Draco thought, but as Ronald laughed the tension in the room seemed to dissipate. No one actually moved or said anything or even really looked at him differently, but… perhaps some stiff muscles relaxed, and some creased foreheads smoothed. Perhaps the difference wasn’t only in his Gryffindor company, Draco thought; even though Ronald was laughing at his expense, Draco didn’t mind at all. Potter caught his eyes for a moment and smiled. Draco smiled back.

Once Ronald’s laughter died down, George piped up. “So, about sweets.” Draco immediately came to attention. “How much did you cover on the tour?”

“Not that much,” Potter admitted. “We talked a little about wanting a themed sweet for The Ridgeback, but that’s about it. Actually,” Potter looked at Draco, “I get it was a joke, but that chocolate you talked about-“

“The railcart chocolate?”

“Yeah, it’s not half a bad idea, really. A custom chocolate would be a lot of fun to have.” Potter chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment, and on Draco’s other side, Longbottom got to his feet and started clearing the table. Thomas joined him. “Maybe a different vehicle, but the same basic idea. The ferris wheel carriages, maybe?” Potter suggested the idea, but then shook his head.

“How about the flume logs?” George offered.

“No, that doesn’t seem quite right, either.”

“The train,” Ronald said, and everyone immediately responded to the idea.

“It could be an entire set,” Draco said somewhat slowly as the idea took shape in his mind. Absently, he fished around in the pocket of his robes for his notebook and self-inking quill, and un-shrunk them with a tap of his wand. “A box of chocolates with a locomotive and then… however many cars your train has. I’ll have to get photographs or drawings of the train at some point. Did you have any thoughts about the filling?”

Potter shook his head. Ronald shrugged. George Banished the now-empty extra table and joined them at theirs.

“How about effects? Did you want it to do anything special? Blow steam? Link together and roll about like a real train?”

“That might be too much like a toy,” Potter said. “Teddy would never eat it if it did that.” He looked at George. “A toy train might be an idea for the gift shop though.”

George had produced some parchment from somewhere as well, and made a note of it.

“Simple is fine,” Potter said. “It’s the Ridgeback sweet I’d like to do something special.”

Draco wrote that down. “You don’t have any particular ideas about it, though? What kind of sweet, what flavour, what effect?” Potter had said earlier, when they were staring up at the tracks, that he didn’t really have any ideas, but Draco had to check again. Sometimes clients would hold back what they thought were ‘sillier’ ideas until he asked a second time, and ‘it’s a roller coaster named after a dragon, make something special’ was a little bit of a vague order. Although…

“Not really, sorry.” Potter sounded slightly chagrined.

“Something in the shape of a ridgeback, perhaps?” Draco suggested. Distantly, he heard someone taking their leave of the room and waved at them over his shoulder.

“In the shape of the dragon?” Potter looked interested.

“Something you might find relevant,” George chimed in, “Is that at one point during the ride, harmless ‘dragon fire’ is shot at the passengers.”

“That is very relevant, thank you.” Draco’s quill kept moving over the parchment. “Some sort of sweet in the shape of a ridgeback, that spits harmless fire. Does that sound like a place to start?”

Potter nodded vigorously. “That sounds fantastic.”

“Good. I’ll see what I can come up with, and run any questions I have by you. Is there anything else?”

Potter hesitated, chewing on his lip.

“Come on, Potter. Out with it.”

Ronald snorted quietly, and Draco wasn’t sure if he was laughing at him or at Potter.

“Honeydukes is… you’re the ones who do No-Melt Ice Cream, is that right?”

“It is.”

“I was wondering - but I don’t know if this would be your job or somebody else’s. But I was hoping we could manage No-Melt Mr Whippy.”

There was a beat of silence.

“What in Salazar’s name is Mr Whippy, Potter?”

“It’s a Muggle ice cream, like,” Potter made an oblique gesture with his hands. “Soft, and swirly? I can’t- I could get Dean to draw it for you?”

Draco mulled it over for a moment. “It sounds… like something I’ll have to see for myself, if you’d like me to replicate it.”

“Right, that- right. You’d, um,” Potter stumbled over his words. Draco tried very hard to be patient. He knew what was coming, and he bloody well deserved it. “We’d have to go to a Muggle shop.”

Draco busied himself with his notes. “Yes, well. You said it was Muggle, so I assumed. We’ll arrange an outing.”

“All right.” Potter’s voice cracked, and Ronald cast him a sidelong glance.

Draco nodded sharply. He got the sense that that was all, but it was best to check. “Any more? What about from you?” He looked to Ronald and George.

“I’ve got enough of a job coming up with sweets for the shop,” George said, but Ronald looked thoughtful.

“Could we sell something jelly that isn’t Jelly Slugs? I remember them being marvellous,” his wistful expression spoke to that, certainly, “-but haven’t been able to stomach them since second year.”

Ah. The slug-vomiting charm. Draco supposed that _would_ put someone off their Jelly Slugs. It was sheer luck that the person hadn’t been him.

“Well, I can’t see any reason why not. Did you have anything particular in mind?”

Ronald pondered that for a while. “Anything other than slugs, really. The animals from the merry-go-round?” Draco looked to Potter. “What, you didn’t show him the merry-go-round? If you don’t like the roller coasters, you might like that. It’s… relaxing.” He waved his fingers in the air and grinned, warm. “Sparkly. It’s Rose’s favourite.”

Draco found himself sharing a smile with Ronald and then, somehow, spending half the afternoon seated in a cheap folding chair at a cheap folding card table with two Weasleys and Harry Potter, happily debating the merits of various magical creatures in jelly form.

* * *

When Draco got home that night, it was quite a bit later than he’d meant for it to be. After leaving Weasley Park, with express instructions to floo-call the Bulstrode house during normal business hours or owl Potter at any time if he had questions, he decided to stop by his office to pick through the information on Pepper Imps and other sweets that produced or simulated fire. That had turned into a full-blown archive dive, and by the time Draco stumbled back through his own floo he had been away from home for more than thirteen hours, hadn’t eaten since lunch, and had a slight headache building behind his left brow.

It was for that reason that he called Pansy immediately. He knew that if he put it off at all, he wouldn’t get around to it until the next day. For anyone else, he might have put it off, but this was Pansy. He knew she would be waiting eagerly for any juicy tidbits he might have gleaned - about the park, or the people he’d seen, or simply his own mishaps.

Draco chuckled as he threw the floo powder into the fire. If what he usually gave Pansy were morsels, today she was getting an entire roast. She had no idea what was coming.

“Draco!” Pansy called out the moment the floo connected. “Come on through!”

“I’m only coming there if you have food, Pans. Otherwise, you should come here.” Not that Draco had much that he could prepare easily around his flat, but if it were a choice between cold cereal and nothing, he’d take the cereal.

“Did the Weasleys keep you so late? Didn’t they feed you, after all this time?”

“They did,” Draco assured her quickly. “Feed me, I mean. Lunch. But the archive at Honeydukes didn’t do much for dinner.”

Pansy sighed and favored him with a fond, but unimpressed look. “I haven’t much, but you can have the rest of my takeaway, if you like. I ordered Chinese.”

“Singapore chow fun?” Draco asked hopefully. It was Pansy’s usual order.

“And spring rolls. Oh, I already told you you could have it, no need for the puppy-crup look. Come on through.”

Pansy was in the process of _Scourgify_ -ing the plate and fork she’d used for dinner when Draco stepped out of her floo. Draco felt more relaxed instantly as the spicy scent of the food curled around him. Pansy patted the other sofa cushion invitingly, her wand busy, and pointed toward the kitchen. A few seconds later, as Draco sat down, a glass of chocolate milk floated over to place itself on the coffee table in front of him.

An intense, warm gratitude bloomed in Draco’s chest. Even without asking, Pansy could tell he’d had quite the day, and was giving him his favourite things to make him feel better. “Oh, Pans. I love you. Why aren’t we married?”

“Because you prefer sex with wizards, and I prefer sex with witches,” Pansy responded frankly, smiling at him nevertheless. “I suppose we could elope anyway,” she mused, “scandalize the wizarding world with our affairs.”

“Mmm, that sounds perfect,” Draco replied, leaning back into the cushions and closing his eyes for a moment. He’d serve himself… soon. Merlin, but he was tired. “I’ll bring you a rock candy ring tomorrow and make it official. Perhaps we could elope to the Caribbean?”

Pansy was silent for a few seconds, and when Draco opened his eyes he found her studying him critically.

“You don’t usually propose to me for a few spring rolls and some chocolate milk,” she said after a while. “Is everything all right? What happened at Weasleys’ today?”

Draco took a breath, then let it out in a sigh as he failed to figure out where to start. The only words springing to his tongue were _Potter_ this and _Potter_ that, and it was all such a stark reflection of the way things been back at Hogwarts that Draco consciously shied away from the old habit. Pansy’s brows raised more and more the longer he hesitated, and by the time thirty seconds had passed, Pansy’s eyebrows were halfway up her forehead and Draco was still no closer to having the words to explain the day’s events.

“I’m going to guess,” Pansy finally said. “It’s Potter?”

Draco bolted upright, gaped at her, and sputtered half-wordlessly all at once. “What? How-“

Pansy cut him off. “No one, darling, _no one_ gets you twisted up like Potter does.”

Draco made a face. He never did like being so transparent, but it seemed that the people around him were always able to read him easily. For Pansy, that was especially true. It was for that reason that the phrasing ‘twisted up’ troubled him. It felt like there was an implication there, but… what had she seen in him that he hadn’t seen in himself?

“Potter,” Draco said, then grimaced as he realized he’d begun that way even after trying not to. “Potter is the Project Director. It was all his idea in the first place.”

Pansy leaned forward with interest, and suddenly everything was spilling out - meeting with George Weasley, Potter’s love for the park he’d designed, Millicent Bulstrode selling her family’s ancestral lands, quarreling with Potter over the roller coasters, making up with Potter over the roller coasters, eating lunch with five Gryffindors, Potter and Longbottom’s flirting, the sweets they’d discussed, the rides he’d seen…

At some point during his rambling, Pansy shoved a plate of Singapore chow fun in his hands, so by the time he was finished talking the food was nearly gone and he felt almost human again, rather than like a sapient ball of nerves.

Pansy had watched him with a slight smile almost throughout, though she’d reacted with appropriate shock at the news of the Bulstrode lands, and seemed slightly miffed at the revelation that Hannah most likely knew all about the amusement park and hadn’t told her. Now she shook her head and sighed the sigh of the long-suffering, a smirk on her face. Draco stabbed uncertainly at his last prawn.

“What?”

“Oh, Draco. It’s nothing, darling.”

It was a lie, Draco knew. He suspected even that Pansy knew that he knew. Still, it meant that he wouldn’t get a straight answer out of her anytime soon, and he resigned himself to that. It didn’t take much to forgive her, though. Especially when she tugged him over so that he could rest his head on her lap, just like old times, and she ran her fingers through his hair.

* * *

Wednesday came and went, a seemingly endless parade of curious coworkers (though he only had three). Draco patiently answered questions about the park between preparing prototype Jelly Unicorns and Hippogriffs, and only teased his boss a little over the fact that he was working with Harry Potter.

“You could have taken the job yourself, but too late! He’s mine now,” he said and, after she left the room with rolled eyes and a harrumph worthy of a crotchety grandfather, was left to wonder why his heart was beating so fast.

Thursday he turned to the puzzle of the Ridgeback sweet, and entertained slightly fewer coworkers. He sketched several potential versions of the thing - perhaps he’d make it a chocolate? Or a hard sweet? A lolly, maybe? No matter what he drew, though, it never seemed to be quite right. A chocolate ridgeback would be too fragile, whereas a hard one would be too fragile and also too sharp. Adding a lolly stick to the mix just made things ridiculous.

By lunch he was frustrated and his drawing hand had begun to ache, so the afternoon was spent with the files on fire-related sweets he’d pulled from the company archive the other night. It didn’t seem that the sort of charm he wanted - one that would make a sweet itself shoot harmless fire - existed.

Sure, there were such things among wizarding toys; as a child he’d owned a figure of an Antipodean Opaleye that would spit “fire” when prompted. Charming food was different, though. One had to make sure the spell would wear off properly, first of all. According to the files on Pepper Imps, the first trials for them had resulted in an emergency visit to St Mungo’s when the test subject had not only shot fire from her mouth (resulting in serious burns, as the charm hadn’t yet taken that into account), but had nearly cooked from the inside out once the sweet had reached her stomach. Which brought him to the second note about charming food - one had to make sure that it wasn’t going to cause internal damage. Even Acid Pops, intentionally damaging as they were to the tongue, didn’t cause any harm to the throat or stomach.

Really, Draco thought, it was extraordinarily impressive that the Weasley twins had begun their business with trick sweets. It was the most difficult part of his job to create new charms for the sweets, and creative charmwork had been something he’d excelled at since fourth year, when he’d made the Potter Stinks badges.

Draco huffed a quiet laugh. That the most difficult part of his job wasn’t his dealings with ridiculous Gryffindor heroes and their excessively ambitious project was honestly surprising. Or perhaps it _wasn’t_ all that surprising. He’d managed to move on from the war, for the most part. He wouldn’t expect those on the winning side to do the same, necessarily, but he’d known well before he’d received the project that the Longbottoms had accepted Pansy, and that even Greg only rarely had people make trouble for him as he hauled cauldrons and swept up at Potage’s.

It was a little surprising even so, Draco thought. Pansy and Greg were both infamous in their own ways, but Draco was _Draco_ , and Potter was _Potter_. He wasn’t sure there’d ever been a less compatible team in all of history.

On Friday Draco continued work on the Ridgeback sweet and entertained almost no coworkers at all. The problem with the dragon, he’d decided, was that it was too detailed and too spindly and too pointy, so Draco sketched simpler shapes and thicker limbs and rounded out the points. That looked better, but Draco still wasn’t really satisfied with the result. It still didn’t look like candy. How would it fit into a wrapper, with all those little limbs sticking out?

The weekend Draco took off, as usual. He tried not to think too much about work so as to face the puzzles with a fresh mind on Monday, but during idle moments as he did his shopping, and cooking, and washing up, his mind kept drifting back to the park, wondering how many people were there constructing The Ridgeback, and who they were, and how much more of it there would be the next time he was there.

* * *

The second Monday morning in April, Draco received an owl from Harry Potter.

 

> _Malfoy,_
> 
> _How are the sweets coming along?_
> 
> _Percy took photographs of the train for you yesterday. They’ll be very thorough, I’m sure! They should be developed by tomorrow, so if you want to stop by Tuesday or anytime after, you can pick them up and we can work out a time to go get Mr Whippy._
> 
>  
> 
> _Harry_

Draco wrote a reply quickly.

 

> _Potter,_
> 
> _That sounds fine. I’ll be by Tuesday after lunch, if that sounds acceptable._
> 
> _The sweets are progressing adequately. I’ll bring some of the prototype Jelly Not-Slugs for you and Ronald to inspect._

Draco hesitated over the letter. Tuesday afternoon would give him time to make enough jelly animals for them to sample. Should he ask how the park was coming? Was it too stiff without that nicety? Would it be more stiff if he included it? Grumbling, Draco signed his name and sent the reply away before he could overthink it any more.

Tuesday at one o’clock in the afternoon exactly, Draco stepped out of the floo with a package of jellies into an apparently empty house. There was no one in the little collection of mismatched chairs by the sitting room windows, no one in Potter’s office (the meeting room?), and no sounds of talking or moving about to indicate that anyone was elsewhere in the house, either.

“Hello?” Draco called out, just in case. He supposed he would floo-call the Weasleys’ shop. Perhaps he’d missed an owl calling the meeting off?

“Malfoy?” Draco turned. Dean Thomas was leaning over the first-floor banister.

“Oh, hello. I’ve a meeting with Potter, is he around?”

“What, he’s not back yet?” Thomas looked at his wristwatch and grimaced. “Must still be out at the Rapids. Bet he hasn’t even had lunch yet.” Thomas shook his head, then started down the stairs. “I’ll come with. You might need some help getting his attention once you get out there.”

Draco thought that Thomas didn’t understand just how experienced he was at getting Potter’s attention, but nodded and thanked him.

Thomas led Draco out of the castle (Draco immediately looked to The Ridgeback, and it did seem to be a tiny bit more complete than it was a week ago), through the yellow section of the park, and to the dry riverbed Draco had glimpsed before. It wasn’t dry anymore, though.

The river was rushing with water, somewhat violently in places. On the opposite bank knelt Ronald, looking drenched and more than a little muddy, broom in one hand and wand in the other, his eyes fixed on the middle of the river. The middle of the river, where Potter stood, waist-deep, bubble-head charm in place as he struggled to… well, Draco wasn’t certain exactly what he was doing. The what didn’t seem so important at the moment anyway, not when his heart was attempting to beat right out of his chest as he watched Potter duck entirely under the froth.

Draco didn’t count, but could feel the seconds ticking by as he watched the spot where Potter’s head had submerged. After what felt like a lifetime, Potter broke back through the surface again, and Draco felt air rush into his lungs. When had he started holding his breath?

Potter signaled to Ronald, who sent him the broom. After Potter was situated on solid ground, Thomas shouted across the water. Draco jolted. He’d all but forgotten Thomas was there. In rapid succession Potter looked over, checked his watch, looked back up at Draco, then back down at his watch. He looked back at Draco again and ran a hand through his hair. He said something - Draco couldn’t hear him at all over the roar of the river, but he thought it might have been a greeting. Draco waved tentatively. Potter waved back, sheepish, and he and Ronald flew over to meet them.

“I’m sorry, Malfoy,” Potter started in the moment he’d landed. “This stupid thing,” he jerked his head toward the river, “-went on the fritz again, and I guess I lost track of time.”

“Yes, well, I can imagine so. You were having a swim in a raging rapid, after all.”

Potter squinted at him, still dripping. He was a mildly amusing sight, even if Draco was rather flustered. “I can’t tell if you’re angry with me, or if you were worried about me.”

Draco sniffed. “I’m not either,” he said in the haughtiest voice he could summon, then turned to follow Thomas and Ronald away from the river.

He _wasn’t_ either. He definitely, definitely had _not_ been worried about Potter.

They stopped not far away, at a collection of outdoor tables near the log flume. Ronald flicked his wand, and a cheerful blue-and-white umbrella sprang from the pole at the centre of the nearest table. Thomas _Accio_ -ed their lunches, which arrived mercifully dry. Draco glared at Potter when he attempted to sit down still wet, and Potter faltered so badly that Draco huffed and performed the drying charms himself.

“The Rapids have never worked right,” Thomas explained as Potter and Ronald all but fell on their sandwiches and chips. “They’re actually the only ride left that doesn’t, other than The Ridgeback. Everyone’s tried to fix them, which maybe has only made the situation worse, since now they’re an awful hodgepodge of semi-functioning magic.”

“H’minee hzn pied,” Ronald said through a mouthful of chips, and Draco sent him a disgusted look that only served to make him nearly choke on his food in laughter.

“Hermione hasn’t tried,” Potter translated. “She’s started the research, but doesn’t have much time for it since she became head of Magical Creatures at the Ministry and wants to spend time with her kids when she manages to be home.” Potter scrubbed at his face with his hands, sighing. “She shouldn’t _have_ to try, though, because it _ought to_ work! The log flume works! Splashland works! The fountain works even though I _had no idea what I was doing_ when I made it!”

“I still think the fountain responds to your emotional state,” Ronald added.

“Probably,” Potter responded with an exasperated laugh. Draco frowned. Hadn’t he seen the fountain form a heart during his tour? “Still, all of _those_ work, so the _Rapids_ should work! I don’t have any idea why they don’t!” Potter threw his hands up in frustration.

“Hermione thinks we should start over from scratch with it,” Ronald said, “but if we do, it definitely won’t be ready in time for opening day. On the other hand, the longer we delay, the farther back the debut of the ride might be pushed, if we can’t find an easy solution to the problem.” He shrugged, looking somewhere between resigned and helpless.

“When is opening day?”

“We’re hoping for the 20th of June, since that’s the first Saturday after Hogwarts lets out, with the announcement going out near the beginning of the month.” Potter grimaced slightly. “Of course, that’s what we were aiming for last year, too.”

“We’re much closer this time,” Ronald tried to reassure Potter across the table. “I think we’re gonna make it.”

Potter gave Ronald a small, grateful smile, and then the four of them lapsed into silence. Draco was surprised and a little discomfited about how much he wanted to help. He didn’t _help_ Potter, or the Weasleys. The project was different - it helped them, certainly, but it was his job. (Helping them at the Manor during the war didn’t count either, he thought, then pushed the memories to the back of his mind.) Perhaps it was just the challenge of the thing that interested him? Solving a puzzle that no one else had managed to solve? Peering at Potter out of the corner of his eyes, Draco didn’t like how that explanation felt like a lie.

“Here,” Draco said suddenly when the silence became too thick, “this might cheer you up.” And _Merlin_ , that was not what he had meant to say at _all_. Why did he care if Potter was cheerful? He didn’t! Perhaps the park had some sort of spell over it that made people give a fig about Potter. That would certainly explain things. “Mostly you, actually,” he went on, looking to Ronald, who was already leaning into the table with interest.

Glancing quickly around, Draco found that all eyes - all bright, curious, Gryffindor eyes - were on him. Draco huffed and placed the box on the table. He was never going to get used to this.

“No way!” Ronald exclaimed the moment the box was open. He plucked a red-and-yellow jelly unicorn off the top and examined it, grinning with delight. “This looks great! You work really fast, Malfoy.”

Draco tried not to preen too noticeably from the praise. “It was the easiest of the orders. All that needed to be done was for me to develop moulds for the new shapes. Tell me if there’s anything about them you’d like to change, it’s still quite easy at this stage.”

Thomas had chosen one of the winged horses and was studying it critically. Potter held one of the dragons (Draco had chosen to go with a Common Welsh Green specifically to differentiate it from the Ridgeback), but his gaze was distant as he stared at it. Draco frowned.

“I’m afraid the Ridgeback sweet is still in the early design and research stages.”

Potter looked up, startled. “Oh, no, that’s fine! I didn’t think…”

Whatever Potter didn’t think was cut off as Ronald made a groan of pleasure from Draco’s other side. He’d apparently decided it was time to try the jelly out. “Oh aa, ‘is iss wha I ‘emember.” Potter smiled and rolled his eyes.

“Good to have your approval,” Draco said, trying not to let too much disgust or amusement  into his voice. “All that’s left is to give them a name.”

“Oh!” Ronald swallowed and grinned. “I have something for that! How about Jelly-go-Round? Since they’re the Merry-go-Round animals.”

“Hey, that’s a really good one,” Potter said. Draco agreed, actually. It was going to be hard to pluralize, but would look nice on a sign.

“Don’t sound so surprised,” Ronald replied, laughing. “One of us has to be good at naming things. After all, Hermione named her organization SPEW, and _you_ ,” Ronald grinned wider, and quite suddenly Potter sat up straight, his back going rigid.

“Ron,” he said, a little pleadingly.

“ _You’re_ the one who-“

“ _Ron_.”

“-when Rose was born, said you’d want to name your kid-“

“Rooonnn, please!” Potter buried his face - now a rather fetching scarlet - in his hands. Or at least, he did so as well as he could around his spectacles, which was not very well at all. Ronald broke off, dissolving into laughter.

“Just saying, mate.”

Potter peeked between his fingers enough to glare at Ronald, then caught Draco staring. Draco wondered how badly his curiosity showed on his face, as Potter’s eyes widened comically before he dropped his head down to the table with a loud _thunk_ that just had to have been painful.

“You just have to marry someone with good name sense, that’s all,” Ronald said, in a tone that was probably intended to be faux-comforting but was barely even coherent around his hiccuping laughter.

“Hate you,” Potter said, muffled by his hands.

Ronald reached across the table and patted Potter on the head. “You love me,” he said with absolute confidence.

Potter muttered something unintelligible in reply.

It was odd, Draco thought as he looked from the back of Potter’s head to the laughing Ronald and Thomas. Despite how much he’d watched Potter and his friends from the other side of the Great Hall back at Hogwarts, or how much time had passed since their schooldays, Draco had never really pictured them interacting like this. It was as if he’d imagined Gryffindors to be some intrinsically different sort of being, like centaurs or goblins. None of this would have been at all out of place at the Slytherin table, though. Looking back to the previous week, neither would any of the lunchtime conversation from then been strange.

It made Draco feel a little unmoored, like he’d lost an anchor he hadn’t even known he’d had, and now found himself floating in unfamiliar seas.

* * *

The rest of Draco’s week passed quickly. On Wednesday he made the suggested adjustments to the designs of the Jelly-go-Round. He had lunch with Clearwater and Whitby, and they only talked about Potter’s amusement park for part of the time. Thursday and Friday were spent mostly designing the train chocolates and only a little bit puzzling frustratedly over the design of the Ridgeback sweet. The weekend all but evaporated.

By Monday evening, Draco had the first-round prototype of the train chocolates prepared and thus, on Tuesday morning, he found himself once again sitting at his desk and staring at his Ridgeback sketches. He felt oddly at a loss.

Part of his frustration was definitely that it had been quite some time since he’d had so much trouble with a sweet’s design. It just wasn’t coming together like it usually did, which was irritating and a little discouraging.

The problem was, he suspected that that wasn’t all. The fact that he wasn’t at Weasley Park that day might also be part of it. He’d only gone two Tuesdays in a row, so it was hard to argue that it had already formed into habit, but the idea that it was, instead, that Potter had gotten so far under his skin so quickly was… Well, it was utterly galling, even if that was exactly how every other interaction he’d ever had with Potter had gone.

Really, he thought he should have known better than to expect anything different.

Nevertheless, Draco felt frustrated and restless and thought he might enjoy talking to someone, and so at lunchtime he locked up his office and went to the Leaky Cauldron. Pansy was behind the counter as usual, and Greg was there as well. Draco did quite enjoy their conversation, as he’d expected, even though (or perhaps because) it was mostly about who was dating whom and who was working where these days.

When the conversation lulled for just long enough that Draco could sense a change of topic incoming, he blurted,

“Let’s say there was a new shopping district being built called Jovi Alley. I was told there was a pun in it, but…”

“Jovially,” Greg grunted into his soup.

Draco felt his world turn a little sideways. “Beg pardon?”

“Jovially. Diagonally. Nocturnally.” Greg shot only the smallest glance at Draco before returning to his lunch.

Diagonally? Fucking _diagonally_? Draco’s world was entirely upside-down and everything was a lie. He tried to speak (not that he knew what he was going to say), but all that came out was an odd squeak.

“You never noticed?” Pansy gasped out. She was laughing so hard that her face had turned bright red. She grabbed onto the counter for support.

Draco sputtered in embarrassed indignity for a moment before managing, “Well, when did you notice?”

“I was nine,” Greg grunted.

“ _Nine_?”

“Mum bought me a new broomstick for being clever.”

“I don’t even know,” Pansy managed, twice as high-pitched as usual, “known as long as I can remember.”

Hannah gave the three of them a thoroughly bemused look as she arrived for her shift, and started laughing uncertainly when Pansy latched onto her.

“Draco,” Pansy said in a loud whisper that Draco was sure carried perfectly well to the rest of the pub, “Draco just found out about _diagonally_.”

Hannah’s blue eyes lighted on him then, sparkling as she attempted to keep a straight face. Draco was grateful that she didn’t apparently know him well enough to feel comfortable laughing at him outright. “Oh my,” she said, a giggle in her voice. Draco wondered what stories about him Pansy had told Hannah. Probably all of them.

“What’s going on?” And oh, that was brilliant, Longbottom had also arrived. Draco supposed he’d come with his wife, but lagged behind a bit.

Hannah answered, as Pansy had buried her face in Hannah’s shoulder and was laughing so hard that she was beginning to wheeze. Draco, vindictively, thought she’d deserve it if she asphyxiated laughing at him.

“Diagonally,” Hannah said simply, laughter bubbling just under the surface.

Longbottom slid onto the barstool next to Draco. For a few moments, he looked puzzled, and Draco felt a wave of relief wash over him. Longbottom didn’t know! Draco wasn’t the only one who hadn’t figured it out before Hogwarts!

“Why…?” Longbottom started, but Pansy interrupted him, slightly muffled.

“When did you figure it out? _Diagonally?_ ”

“Oh! I dunno, when I was ten? Maybe?”

Longbottom jumped when Draco let his burning face fall to the bar with a heavy thud. Greg reached over and patted Draco on the back with one large hand.

“Draco just found out he’s thick,” Greg said in his plodding manner. “He needs time to adjust.”

Draco mumbled something about putting him out of his misery. Pansy laughed harder, Greg patted him on the back again, Hannah tried not to giggle, and Longbottom attempted to hide a laugh in a cough.

Draco thought that he could have done without the revelation that he was possibly the thickest wizard on the planet. He also could have done without his friends laughing at him. Still, when he returned to his desk a little while later, the weight of Greg’s hand still on his back and Pansy’s (slightly malicious) delight ringing in his ears, he sat down and fixed the Ridgeback sweet’s design.

* * *

That Friday, when Draco arrived at Weasley Park for his Mr Whippy outing with Potter at half three, he stepped out of the floo and directly into a chest-high gaggle of children. The three of them - all of whom looked dreadfully familiar and yet who Draco couldn’t quite recognize - immediately ceased their conversation and stared at him. Draco clutched awkwardly at the boxes of prototype sweets he’d brought.

“Hello,” Draco attempted, but none of them answered. _They’ve probably been trained not to speak to strange wizards who pop unexpectedly through the floo,_ Draco thought.

“Everything all right in here? Oh, Malfoy!” Potter had stuck his head into the room.

“Ah, Potter, good.”

“Malfoy?” The oldest of the children, a boy who looked about old enough to be heading to Hogwarts in the autumn, squinted at him critically with - Draco’s heart did an odd flip in his chest - with what were clearly Potter’s strikingly green eyes. He also wore his hair bright blue, and if Draco hadn’t been so preoccupied with the boy’s eyes he might have thought more clearly that someone (probably Potter) was a terrible influence on the child.

Potter came up behind the boy. “Yeah, everyone, this is Draco Malfoy. He works for Honeydukes and is making sweets for the park, so he’s coming with us today.”

_He’s coming with us today?_

“Malfoy, this is my godson Teddy, and Bill and Fleur’s girls Victoire and Dominique.”

The children chimed a chorus of greetings. Draco was moderately sure he managed to respond in kind.

“It’ll just be a few more minutes, everyone. Malfoy,” and Potter headed back in the direction of his office (the meeting room?? Draco really needed to ask), motioning for Draco to follow. “Sorry about this,” Potter said the moment they crossed the threshold of the-room-of-ambiguous-purpose. “I should’ve asked. I tend to forget that some people get flustered around children.”

“I’m not flustered, Potter, it’s fine.”

He was definitely flustered, and the way his face felt hot was probably giving him away. Potter squinted at him just as Teddy had done, and Draco had to break eye contact. He shoved the sweet boxes at Potter for lack of anything else to do.

“Merlin, they’re all so old! I feel like an old maid.”

Potter chuckled. “Tell me about it. The one that really gets me is that Ron and Hermione have a three-year-old. Anyway, those three are the oldest, since I figured they’d be the best behaved and I can handle them on my own even if they’re not, but there’s plenty of younger ones too, trust me.” Potter peeked into the chocolate box and grinned. “Teddy’s birthday was yesterday, actually. His eleventh.”

Potter looked far away for a moment, wistful and lonely. Draco didn’t have children and due to obvious reasons, didn’t really anticipate having the chance to have children, or even get married (the occasional half-joking proposal to Pansy aside), and thus had never spent any time considering what it must be like for parents to send away their children to Hogwarts. He knew intellectually that his parents had missed him while he was away, but it had never hit him emotionally. Now, looking at Potter’s face, sad and proud and gentle, and thinking of Potter’s godson barely chest-high and with Potter’s eyes and mannerisms, it felt like a Bludger to the gut.

“You said he’s your godson, but… are you related in another way? He definitely has your eyes.” Draco was babbling, but found it hard to stop.

Potter shook himself and turned to place the boxes on the card table. “Not any more than any magic folk are inevitably related to each other, no. He’s a metamorphmagus, like his mum was.” Potter turned back around and, while Draco was still digesting that information (hadn’t there been a female metamorphmagus he’d heard of at some point during his childhood?), said, “He’s your cousin, actually. If you didn’t know.”

“He- what?” Despite the question, it had already hit him. The female metamorphmagus was the cousin he’d never met, his aunt Andromeda’s daughter.

“Yeah, he’s your mum’s sister’s daughter’s son. So he’s your… first cousin once removed? I think?”

“That would be correct,” Draco replied faintly. “I’d heard aunt Andromeda’s daughter died. Didn’t realize she’d had a child.”

Potter was studying him carefully. “She did. Andy and I have raised him since he wasn’t even a month old.”

“What of his father?”

Potter looked like he rolled the answer around in his mouth before deciding to give it voice. “Remus Lupin. He died in the battle, too.”

“Lupin? Lupin the we-“

“Yes.”

“And is he-“

“No, he’s not.”

Draco cleared his throat and tried to shake off the odd feeling that had settled on his skin. “Apologies. That… was terribly rude of me.”

“That’s okay,” Potter said after a long moment. “You said it to me and not to him, so… it’s okay.”

Draco nodded. “Still, I’m sorry.”

Potter stared at him, something that Draco couldn’t quite read on his face. Draco tried not to fidget and did anyway. He felt naked without his robes but had left them behind at his office so as to attempt to pass for Muggle. Now, with Potter’s eyes all over him, he wished he’d brought them along.

“Okay,” Potter said at length.

Draco attempted to respond, but the word got stuck in his throat.

Potter turned back to the table, fiddling with the sweet boxes, and Draco was able to catch his breath again. Salazar help him, but Potter certainly did have a hell of an effect on him. Or at least, on his ability to breathe properly. Draco wasn’t certain what that meant, but it didn’t seem like the time to examine it too closely.

“You ready to go?” Potter asked after just long enough that Draco had begun to feel awkward again. He turned back around. “You look all right. A little formal for an ice cream shop, but Muggle enough. I figure the kids will take some of the attention off of you, plus if they go for their usual orders you’ll get to see a variety. That sound all right?”

“That sounds fine. Where are we going exactly, though?”

“I figured we’d go to the shop near my house. It’s right around the corner, I take the kids all the time.” Potter moved to go back to the other room, and Draco followed. “Mostly Teddy, of course, but Victoire and Dominique sometimes too. If Charlie’d been back today, I might have brought the whole crew. He’s brilliant with the kids.”

Draco dreaded to wonder just how many children ‘the whole crew’ consisted of.

The children were waiting eagerly when they returned.

“Time to go?” Teddy asked hopefully. Potter grinned at him. Now that Draco was looking for it, he could see hints of Black lineage in Teddy’s face - the arch of his brows, the set of his mouth, and in particular his nose was the exact shape of Draco’s mother’s, which was rather eerie - and Draco was left to wonder if it all was natural, or if it was intentional on the boy’s part, picked up from his grandmother and perhaps from photographs or portraits as well.

“Time to go,” Potter affirmed. “Lead the way!”

Teddy grabbed a handful of the floo powder with excitement and tossed it into the fire. He took a breath, opened his mouth… and nothing came out. Instead, he coughed a few times, as if his throat had attempted to close on itself, and looked at Potter accusingly. “You didn’t tell him?”

“I- oh! God, the _Fidelius_! Sorry, Teddy.” Teddy coughed once more as Potter turned to Draco. “Yeah, we’re going via my house since that’s the easiest way, but I forget it’s still under _Fidelius_. So, it’s Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place.”

Draco blinked. “The… the old Black house? Why in the world…?”

“It’s a bit of a story. I’ll tell you some other time.” Potter waved it off and turned back to Teddy, leaving Draco burning with unanswered questions. Teddy nodded.

“Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place!” he said clearly, and a bit too loudly, and stepped through the fire. The girls followed suit.

“After you,” Potter said, sweeping an arm toward the fireplace in a slightly exaggerated fashion, his smile a little cheeky.

Draco stepped forward, his expression stuck in a weird limbo between an amused smile and dubious frown. The powder slipped awkwardly between his fingers. He felt hot. The fire must have been very warm.

“Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place!”

* * *

Draco froze with one foot still on the hearth. If not for the fact that the children were there, milling about somewhat impatiently nearby, Draco would have thought he’d arrived in the wrong place.

He’d only been to the Black house once or twice, and he’d been no older than four at the time, but he was certain that it had not looked like this. The wallpaper was clean and bright and cheerful even though rain fell outside the tall windows, the sofas looked comfortable and not at all stiff, there was a large display of children's drawings on one wall-

“Woah!”

At that moment, Potter came through the floo and ran straight into Draco, who hadn’t yet remembered to step away from the fireplace. It was a near thing that Draco didn’t fall entirely to the ground, but Potter caught him around the waist with one arm and by the shoulder with the other and saved him that indignity, at least.

He was in Potter’s home. It hit Draco all at once. He was in Potter’s home, which was somehow also the Black house, he was about to go to an ice cream parlour with Potter and what amounted to Potter’s son and two nieces, and Potter’s arms were around him.

“Sorry,” Draco wheezed, attempting to right himself. “Sorry, I- I didn’t-“

Potter shifted his grip and pulled Draco upright. Draco turned to him, Potter’s hands never quite leaving him entirely.

“Are you all right?”

Potter was close. He was so close Draco could feel the heat of his body, so close Draco could see as his pupils encroached upon his green (very, very green, oh _Merlin_ ) irises as Draco met his eyes. Draco’s heart was thundering, and he couldn’t breathe at all.

The moment was abruptly broken by one of the girls. “ _I told you that they’re dating._ ”

Potter let go of Draco and went to herd the children out of the room, rolling his eyes. Draco followed behind, utterly indignant. Of all the preposterous, _presumptuous_ things to say-

“ _But if this is a date, why did they bring us?_ ” Teddy replied.

 _Wait_.

“English, please,” Potter said, sounding as though this was a direction he had to give frequently. “They do this all the time,” he said to Draco. “Fleur looks after them during the day usually, and does all their primary school stuff. So they all speak French.” Potter sighed and added, in a mutter, “and I don’t.”

The youngest one - Dominique, he thought Potter had called her - at least looked mildly sorry about the whole thing, which really wasn’t necessary as she hadn’t said anything at all. She turned her freckled face up to Potter’s as she walked, though, and he patted her affectionately on her strawberry blonde head. Teddy, on the other hand, smiled and stuck his tongue out at Potter, and the older girl (Victoire?) giggled merrily, her silvery blonde hair swishing behind her somewhat hypnotically as she walked.

Something clicked in Draco’s mind. “Wait, Fleur? Fleur Delacour?”

“Yeah, she married Bill Weasley. Like I said, they’re- Teddy, don’t run on the stairs. Or would you rather spend the afternoon in St Mungo’s instead of getting ice cream?”

Fleur Delacour and a Weasley? That explained the French, though, and the ethereal quality of the girls. Draco shook himself and watched as Potter outfitted each of the children with an umbrella and _Impervius_ charms on their socks and shoes. The girls were both young yet, so hadn’t grown into their Veela heritage (and for all he knew they might never, they were only half as much Veela as their mother after all), but there was something mildly hypnotic about them. Draco wondered if the adults around them got used to the effect after a while.

Once the children were all set and beginning to run outside to splash in the puddles on the front walk, Potter turned to Draco and held up an umbrella.

“This is the last one,” he said, apology in his voice. “Would it be all right if we…? If it’s not, I can-“

Draco huffed. “It’s fine, Potter. Let’s go before they get there without us.” Draco resolutely ignored way his heart was doing cartwheels in his chest.

It was awkward at first. Draco tried to put some distance between them, which meant his left arm was getting soaked. When Potter noticed he held the umbrella further over Draco, which meant his own right side was in the rain. Eventually, Draco sighed and crowded over into Potter’s space, manually adjusting Potter’s arm so the umbrella covered them both. Potter looked at him with wide eyes, face pink, but didn’t say anything.

It was rather cosy, actually. The rain fell gently all around them, a soft blanket of noise pierced only by the chattering of the children’s conversation - half English and half French - and the occasional joyful shriek as one of them jumped into a particularly good puddle. Potter was warm and steady beside him. He and Potter didn’t speak except to coordinate the dodging of shoe-soaking puddles, but it was a pleasant silence. A wave of tingling swept through Draco every time their arms brushed. When Victoire noticed them she laughed and called to the others, in French,

“ _I told you! I told you!_ ”

They reached the ice cream shop almost before Draco knew it.

It was a very small shop set between two larger buildings. The indoor area appeared to be reserved for employees only, and a large window dominated the shopfront. It seemed like absolutely every inch of the place was covered in bright posters showcasing menu options. A red-and-white-striped awning covered only part of a small seating area - really just two metal benches framing the front of the shop - and a narrow metal counter. The children were all clustered at that counter, talking to a Muggle girl working the shop through a small sliding panel in the window. From behind, their brightly-coloured umbrellas clustered together looked like flowers bobbing in the breeze.

The shopgirl sent Potter a sunny smile when she spotted him, then her eyes slid over to Draco and she blinked, her eyebrows raising.

“Hello!” she greeted merrily. “Good to see you again! What’ll you all have today?”

Potter grinned at her and then turned to the children. The children apparently recognized their cue, as they all at once called out their orders. Draco had no idea how Potter understood them, nor how they knew what to ask for - the posters all spoke of things he’d never heard of before, and the Mr Whippy poster only seemed to advertise the fact that Mr Whippy was available.

Potter nudged his shoulder, and Draco dragged his attention away from the display. “How about you?” he asked gently, voice low. “A cone? If you want the most basic type, then you can get vanilla or chocolate.”

“Vanilla?” It came out a little uncertain, but Potter smiled at him and turned back to the window.

“Okay, we’re going to have one vanilla single, one chocolate single, one vanilla single with hundreds and thousands, one vanilla single with orange dip, and one bubblegum sundae.”

“Coming right up!”

Potter turned back to Draco and hid a laugh badly. “You look so uncomfortable,” he said, not unsympathetically.

Draco crossed his arms and huffed. “Yes, well-“

“Go watch,” Potter urged, and Draco swallowed a squawk of protest as he was immediately pushed over to the window. He frowned at Potter once he was in place, who nodded toward the window in a clear ‘go on’ gesture.

Draco huffed again and looked. The girl was in front of a large Muggle contraption, holding a clear cup that she was… Draco squinted and leaned a little closer to the glass over the narrow counter. She was using the Muggle machine to pour something into the cup in a swirling motion. It wasn’t liquid, actually, he realized as she swirled it right up into a heap well above the rim of the cup. Was it ice cream? What was that Muggle thing doing to make it that consistency?

She topped it with syrup of a blue colour so bright that Draco couldn’t decide if it was alarming or delightful, added some sort of chocolate bar, and slid it through the window onto the counter. Her call of, “One bubblegum sundae,” was unnecessary, as Dominique practically jumped to get her hands on it. The girl laughed as she said, “Enjoy!”

Draco was officially intrigued. The girl used the machine to produce three more swirly ice creams, these in cones. The first was rolled in brightly-coloured bits (Draco thought the ice cream was going to fall from its cone, but it didn’t) before being handed to Victoire. The second was turned entirely upside-down (Draco was certain it would fall that time, but it still didn’t) and dipped into a sauce that hardened into a thin orange shell, and was claimed by Teddy. The third had nothing odd added to it and was never turned upside-down or sideways and was instead presented as-is through the window.

“One vanilla single cone,” the girl said, and after a moment Potter nudged Draco, and Draco realized that it was his.

“Right, sorry, thank you,” he said all in a rush, and gingerly took the thing.

“Enjoy!” she said with a smile, then turned back from the window, ostensibly to make Potter’s ice cream.

The children had all squeezed onto the dry part of one bench, so Draco sat on the other, barely taking his eyes off the strange confection in his hands. He wasn’t going to manage to sit down and sketch it right here, what with the rain and no table, and the ice cream beginning to melt, so he had to memorize it. Potter sat down beside him, a cone that was identical but for its brown colour in his hand.

“Are you gonna try it?” Potter asked once several seconds had passed. His tone wasn’t quite teasing, and there was a thread of something lying underneath the words - nervousness? Draco looked at Potter, then blushed when he found Potter’s eyes already on him, though he didn’t know what he’d expected.

“I suppose,” Draco replied, for lack of anything else to say, then - and did Potter have to _stare_ at him while he did this - gave the ice cream a hesitant lick.

 _Oh_.

It was soft, and smooth, and light, yet also somehow thick enough to retain its shape. Draco leaned in close to Potter and murmured,

“Are you entirely certain this isn’t magic?”

Potter barked a laugh hard enough that his own ice cream wobbled dangerously. “No,” he replied much more quietly, “just Muggle ingenuity.”

Ingenuity was the right word, Draco thought. He was going to have a hell of a time replicating this faithfully. But it was what Potter had asked for- it was his _job_ , more importantly, he corrected himself. He tried to make a plan as he worked on his ice cream.

The children finished first, unsurprisingly. Teddy and Victoire were both old enough to manage to clean up afterward more or less competently, but Dominique had blue sauce smeared all across one cheek. Potter handed the rest of his cone to Draco to hold as he wet a paper napkin in the rain and knelt in front of the little girl, scrubbing gently at her face as she visibly attempted not to fuss.

“It’s going to drip,” Draco warned once liquid chocolate had begun to pool dangerously around the rim of Potter’s cone.

Potter twisted back around and in one smooth, practiced movement, without taking the cone from Draco’s hand, gave it a thorough lick that cleared the problem right up. Draco was grateful that Potter turned his attention back to Dominique immediately. Never mind that he was eating ice cream in the rain in April, his whole body was burning hot. He suspected that Victoire’s laughter was at his expense.

He and Potter finished their ice creams on the walk back to Potter’s house, the children running ahead and splashing in the puddles once again. Without any Muggle audience, in between licks Draco grilled Potter on what he knew about the Mr Whippy and its toppings and serving styles, and by the time they had all made it back to the Bulstrode house, Draco was bursting with ideas and eager to get back to his office.

“You’re going already?” Potter asked, surprised, as Draco turned right back around to floo back to work.

“Yes, I’ve got to talk to Pamela before she leaves for the weekend, try to put in an order for one of those Muggle _devices_ so I can figure out exactly what it does to the ice cream to make it like that. You can owl me your opinions on the updated jelly shapes and the train chocolates - the fillings aren’t finalized, you can request whatever you like for the final product, and- what?”

Potter was staring at him with a very unusual look on his face, something soft and hesitant and more that Draco couldn’t quite make out.

“Nothing,” Potter replied, smiling.

“Are you sure? If there’s something you’re concerned about-“

“No, nothing like that. It’s nothing. Go on, I’ll owl you in a couple days.”

Draco nodded, a little hesitant himself, now. “All right. Well then, see you, Potter.”

“See you, Malfoy.”

Draco flooed away, certain that whatever was on Potter’s mind, it wasn’t nothing.

* * *

Draco managed to catch Pamela just as she was locking up her office for the weekend, and she rolled her eyes but turned the lights back on and let him in. He stayed at Honeydukes that night until the janitor came around, filing the request forms and sketching swirly ice creams.

Saturday he caught up with Pansy, and if she were mildly bemused that most of his conversation topics were about ice cream, she was nevertheless patient with him. Late that night, Draco Apparated back to the ice cream shop, concealed with a disillusionment charm, and copied the entire menu into his notebook, even the things he didn’t understand.

The Mr Whippy machine arrived halfway through Monday morning, and Draco fiddled with it uselessly until lunch before deciding to enlist the help of Whitby. As it turned out, Whitby had a knack for making Muggle things work in wizard space, though Draco assisted quite nervously over the next two days as his youngest colleague gutted the machine and put it back together. Even though it worked in the end, Whitby grimaced and warned him to learn what he needed from it quickly, as it wasn’t going to last all that long.

“The magic-based electricity of the dragon’s blood battery burns the circuitry out pretty quickly,” Whitby said, a little apologetic.

Draco nodded along and hoped it wasn’t clear that he didn’t understand remotely.

It did work, though, at least for a little while, and once Draco was able to see exactly what the machine was doing, he started right in on replicating the process via magic. Draco worked long hours Thursday and Friday, then straight through the weekend - Pansy flooed in to make sure he was all right when he missed their Sunday brunch, and ended up spending the rest of the day poking unhelpfully but cheerfully around his office. Still, it wasn’t until mid-Tuesday that he had a functioning prototype apparatus, and not until Wednesday night that he managed to make it produce anything decent.

The ice cream mix, at base, had been easy enough to devise, but making it No-Melt turned out to be trickier. The No-Melt spells didn’t want to stick to the liquid mix, ostensibly because it was already melted - or rather, not frozen yet. When he forced them, the ice cream refused to freeze. When he adjusted them slightly and tried again, his apparatus exploded in a sticky supernova, and he had to spend the rest of Thursday rebuilding it and reapplying the charms, thanking all his lucky stars that he kept thorough records of his process and that he’d remembered to shield his desk before experimenting.

Midmorning Friday, Draco was busy with a third attempt, wand moving slowly over a bowl of ice cream mix, when a loud knock on the open door of his office caused him to jump. The liquid in the bowl burst like someone had dropped a firecracker into it. Some even managed to make its way up his nose. Covered all up his front in sticky vanilla goop, half-sneezing and half-coughing, Draco turned to the door of his office expecting to find a coworker - or possibly his boss - to berate for interrupting him mid-spell.

“You’ve got a visitor!” Pamela announced, grinning wickedly. Not that she’d needed to say anything. Even through his dripping eyelashes, Draco could clearly see Harry Potter standing just behind her.

Draco whipped back around and quickly cleaned himself up. “Salazar’s pants, Pamela, I know Potter is an esteemed guest and all, but you couldn’t have waited until I was finished casting?”

“Nope,” Pamela replied unrepentantly. “He’s all yours now.” With that, she turned and went back to her office, leaving Draco to choke on her words. He hoped that Potter thought he was still aspirating ice cream mix.

When he turned back around again, Potter was standing in the doorway awkwardly. Draco sighed and conjured a chair.

“It’s not your fault,” Draco said, mildly exasperated at everything. “Pamela was… getting me back for something. Sit down, Potter. What brings you here?” Draco turned back to the lab bench that dominated one side of the room and continued cleaning without waiting to see if Potter sat.

“If you didn’t want to be disturbed, why was your door open?” Potter’s voice approached him from behind, and he could see when Potter went over to look at the ice cream apparatus further down the bench.

Draco rolled his eyes. Potter never had been good at following directions. “The door is open precisely _because_ I’m working with unstable spells. The idea being that if someone wishes to speak to me, they can see if I’m casting a spell at that moment and wait to disturb me until I’ve finished.”

“Right,” Potter replied, face a little pink.

Draco huffed. “As I said, it’s not your fault. If you break that, it _will_ be, though.” Potter’s hand jerked back from where he had been reaching out toward the apparatus. Potter cleared his throat, pinker than before, and shuffled sheepishly to his chair. Draco waited until he was seated before speaking again. “So, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

Potter squinted at Draco momentarily, as if trying to decide if he was being sarcastic. “I just… I dunno, it’s been a couple weeks. Haven’t really heard from you. I was wondering how things are going?”

Merlin, had it been that long already? He’d been completely absorbed in the project.

“It looks like you’ve gotten really far already,” Potter continued. “Is that for the Mr Whippy?”

“It is,” Draco said, shooting the apparatus a glance. “It makes the basic stuff, but I haven’t managed No-Melt yet. That’s what I was just working on.”

Potter nodded understanding, looking around the room. He spotted the machine still sitting in the corner, half its guts in an open crate beside it and still connected to the large box that Whitby had called a ‘dragon’s blood battery,’ whatever in the world that meant. Draco faintly wondered if he had meant literal blood from dragons or the herb called dragon’s blood, but he’d not remembered to ask.

“Is that… an _actual_ Mr Whippy machine? What in the world did you do to it?” Potter sounded amused, which Draco was grateful for. It occurred to him that he didn’t know if people familiar with Muggles would take offense to the total deconstruction of one of their devices.

“It is,” Draco said again, looking at it too. “And I haven’t the faintest idea. Whitby - my coworker, Kevin Whitby - made it work, despite the lack of… whatever thing it is that Muggle devices need to function.”

“Electricity?” Potter asked.

“That sounds right.”

Potter stared at the thing for a few moments longer, scratching at his faint shadow of stubble thoughtfully. Draco conjured a chair across from Potter’s and sat, studying him.

“Why _are_ you here, Potter?” When Potter went to speak, Draco shook his head and said, “I know, you wanted a progress report. But why did you come here for that? Is… everything all right?”

Potter waved his hands in an attempt at a reassuring gesture. “Everything’s fine, it’s just a nasty storm today, so there’s not much it’s safe to do at the park besides argue endlessly about its name.” He shrugged. “Seemed like a good time to check in with you.”

What Potter was saying made general sense, but Draco still found himself confused, if perhaps for no reason other than because it was _Potter_ , and Draco was _Draco_ , and why would Potter have chosen to spend any of his rare day off with _him_ , instead of relaxing at home, or whatever it was that Gryffindors did with their spare time?

“Well,” Draco said slowly, feeling a little flat-footed, “I’ve told you most of the progress on the ice cream. I’ve made vanilla and chocolate, but the apparatus can easily handle more, so if there are other flavours you’d like, make a note of it and I’ll whip them up.

“The Jelly-go-Round is ready for production any time, and I got your notes on the train chocolates - are you _quite_ sure you want to call them Choo-Choocolate Express?”

Potter turned pink. “It… it was just an idea.”

Draco shook his head. “Well, Merlin knows I’m no better with names, though I can recognize dreadful ones when I see them. Perhaps ask Ronald? His first idea wasn’t so bad.”

Potter’s face was ripening like a tomato, and Draco frowned. He hadn’t meant to make Potter feel bad. Not properly, at least.

“Or not,” Draco barreled on. “It gets the point across, and is a bit funny. It’s not like candy is the most serious business in the world.”

Draco nearly sighed with relief when Potter looked a little happier at that. _Merlin_ , but the man’s feelings were like candy floss - dampen them at all and they simply melted away. Although… it wasn’t as though he was always like that, Draco thought. Why, it had been barely a month ago they’d argued when Draco had insinuated the roller coasters at the park were unsafe, and Potter hadn’t melted then. Perhaps Potter had a dream of naming a sweet, or something? Or it was a sense of territoriality over things relating to his park? Draco frowned again.

“Perhaps you’d like to see the design for the Ridgeback sweet?”

Potter perked up significantly. “That would be great.”

Draco summoned his notebook and flipped through until he found the correct page, moving to stand beside Potter as he handed the book over.

Ultimately, Draco had decided to simplify the design as much as possible, and had wound up with a lolly in the somewhat stylized shape of a ridgeback’s head. It would shoot “fire” when licked, but not when sucked, which was going to be a nightmare of a charm to develop, and Draco didn’t know why he did these things to himself. The flavours he’d tentatively chosen were tied in to the theme colours of the park, since the Ridgeback was meant to be the signature sweet of the place: red cherry, yellow lemon, green apple, blue blueberry (or bubblegum? he wasn’t as sure about that one since the trip to the ice cream shop), purple blackcurrant, and a bonus flavour, _maybe_ , just for the novelty of it - fire, by which he meant hot pepper, in a realistic Ridgeback colour scheme.

“Dragonpops?” Potter murmured, after a couple minutes had passed. Oh, Draco had nearly forgotten he’d labeled the page with that name.

“It’s what I’ve been calling them, not a finalized name. ‘The Ridgeback sweet’ gets a bit clunky after a while.”

“I like it,” Potter said, then brushed his thumb beside a sketch of a pop. “I love it, really. All of it.” Potter’s voice was quiet and a little awestruck, and something deep in Draco’s chest was throbbing in response. Potter looked up at him. “I didn’t know what I wanted, but this is it. Exactly.”

As Potter’s green eyes stared into his, warm and grateful and bright, and a blush scorched its way up Draco’s neck, Draco abruptly knew that he was fucked.

Utterly fucked.

The realization crashed over Draco like the tide, inevitable and irresistible. He fancied Potter.

He didn’t just _fancy_ Potter, he was outright _gone on_ Potter. He’d thought of next to nothing besides Potter and work for _weeks_ , and Potter was tied into his work currently, so really he’d been thinking of Potter _nonstop_ for _weeks_ , maybe as much as a _month_ , and worse than that - worse than _that_ \- was the revelation that even before he’d walked into the dining room of the old Bulstrode house and seen Potter there, he’d fancied Potter. He’d fancied Potter for _years_.

He’d probably fancied Potter since he was sixteen, maybe earlier, and Draco was the _thickest_ person who had ever been born, wizard or Muggle.

“Malfoy?”

Draco realized that he was standing and staring at Potter in total silence, and he whipped his head around to look at, well, at nothing in particular across the room. His face was _erupting_ with heat. His face was a fucking _volcano_.

“I’m glad you like it,” Draco said, and his voice came out thin as paper. “ _Very_ glad, actually, as I haven’t any more ideas.”

“Yeah, it’s… it’s really brilliant- are you okay?”

Draco summoned all his strength and smiled at Potter, instantly regretting the decision. Having Potter’s genuine concern aimed at him was rather more than he could bear at that exact moment. Draco wasn’t sure if he wanted to scream, or to weep, or to kiss the bastard. Perhaps all three.

“I’m fine,” Draco said, “just a little tired.” It wasn’t a lie, really, so it came out genuinely enough. He’d been working near constantly for almost two weeks, so he was wearing out a bit. To solidify the claim, Draco returned to his chair and sat, trying not to let it seem like he was attempting to look anywhere but at Potter.

“Oh,” Potter said, looking like he only half believed the excuse. “Well, don’t wear yourself out over this, we’ve still got the better part of two months.”

Draco snorted. “I’m sure you’re one to talk, Potter. Do you take days off, at all?”

Potter sent him a cheeky grin. “Not really. I need to do all I can to get the park open on time. There should be time for me to take days off after it’s all up and running.”

“How are things progressing, if I may ask?” The shift of focus away from him was a relief, and Draco hoped he could get Potter to ramble a bit so he’d have a little more time to recover his composure.

“It’s all nearly ready, actually,” Potter said, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. He really looked unfairly good like that, Draco thought. “We’ll probably finish construction on The Ridgeback next weekend. The entrance and arrival area is nearly complete, too. So aside from fixing up the insides of most of the shops - that’s probably a worse job than I think it’ll be - the only real mess left is the Roiling Rapids.” Potter chewed on his lower lip for a moment, thoughtful, and Draco had to look away. “There’s still quite a bit of spellwork to do, of course. There’s charming and testing The Ridgeback, and we still have to remove the wards and cast an entirely new set, which’ll be a chore. Nev and his team of elves are working on the gardens as fast as they can, but they’ll only grow at their own pace. Except for the bits they’re making grow faster than their own pace, but…” Potter shrugged.

Potter bit at his own lip again, studying Draco and seeming to hesitate over something. Draco resolutely examined the floor beside Potter’s chair, so missed when Potter came to a decision and startled slightly when Potter said, “You could come see, if you want?”

“Sorry? I thought it was storming?”

“Not right now,” Potter replied quickly. “I mean, Saturday. Or Sunday. One of these weekends. Whenever.”

Draco looked back up at him then. Potter was a little pink in the face again, and Draco was relatively certain he himself was, too. Had Potter honestly just invited him to their buddy-buddy Gryffindor construction weekends? Why in the _world_?

“I… are you certain that’s a good idea? Weasley and Longbottom and the rest accepted my presence when I was there on official business, but… also, I have no experience at all in major construction.” Also, he’d been planning to work through the weekend again, but even Draco could admit that maybe a small break wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world.

“It should be fine,” Potter assured, though Draco noticed that he’d said _should_ and not _will_. “Word about you spread pretty quickly, and that was, what, a month ago? So everyone knows you’re involved by now. And it’s not like any of us had experience before we put Hogwarts back together, or experience with the kind of construction a roller coaster needs before we first tried that.”

That was all true, to be fair. But Draco hadn’t even helped with Hogwarts like the others all had - he’d been under house arrest and awaiting trial at the time. And sure, so Potter had, for some reason, apparently decided that Draco was welcome to pop by his park ‘whenever,’ and it’s not like Ronald or George had refused to work with him, and Thomas and Longbottom both seemed relatively all right with his presence, but… what of the rest? What of Granger and the other Weasleys and all the others that had been mentioned at lunch that first day? Would they be so quick to forgive and forget? Draco didn’t expect so, and he sure as hell hadn’t earned it.

Potter frowned after Draco had hesitated for just a few seconds too long. “You can make it official business, if that would be better?”

Draco frowned, too. “How do you mean?”

“You could show up around lunchtime, bring that with you.” Potter motioned at the ice cream apparatus and Draco’s eyebrows shot up. “Hand out samples, or something.”

Draco hesitated again, teetering on the edge. He _wanted_ to go, he realized with a start. Perhaps it was mostly that he wanted to be near Potter (not that there was any guarantee of that even if he did choose to go), and a little that he was curious about how the park looked now that a few weeks had passed, but he wanted to take Potter up on his offer. Taking the ice cream with him was a good excuse, too, but that came with problems of its own.

“It’s a little bit delicate,” Draco started, and Potter looked confused for a moment before Draco nodded at the apparatus. “So I can’t shrink it safely or carry it easily by myself through the floo. I’d either need someone to meet up with me and assist, or…”

“Or?”

“Or…” Draco cleared his throat, not sure if what he was about to suggest would be an even worse idea than him just showing up without the ice cream. “I could bring Pansy.”

Potter’s face, which had gotten somewhat tense, relaxed into a smile. “That would be fine.” Draco stared at him. He did not fucking understand Potter. Not one bit.

“It… would?”

“Well, sure. Everyone knows Parkinson, since she’s at the Leaky. Especially Nev and Hannah.”

“Oh.” Well, Draco supposed that was fair, though he honestly hadn’t thought of it that way before. He looked back over at the ice cream apparatus, taking a mental inventory. “Well, I’d better see you out then. Saturday is Pansy’s day off this week, so I’ll need to get to work if I’m to make enough ice cream mix by tomorrow.”

“You mean, you’ll come?”

Draco huffed, embarrassed at Potter’s excited tone. “It’s not a promise. I still have to ask Pansy, and it’s short notice so she may well have plans already. But… yes, I’ll come. At some point. When I can.”

That answer seemed to agree with Potter, and so he nodded and stood, handing the notebook back to Draco. “I could stay and help, if you want?”

Draco thought briefly of standing side-by-side with Potter at the lab bench, alone, for hours, and quickly shook his head. He’d had enough of anxious, breathless affection for one day and was more than ready to move onto anxious, hurried, last-minute preparations. “No thank you, Potter. I work better alone.”

Potter nodded again, and let Draco lead him back to the guests’ floo in the lobby. Just before he stepped through, Potter turned to Draco and reached out, clasping him on the shoulder and looking him right in the face. Draco abruptly forgot how to breathe.

“See you soon,” Potter said quietly, and he was close enough that Draco could feel the low rumble of his voice.

“See you soon,” Draco agreed with the last of his air.

Potter smiled at him, then disappeared through the flames.

Once Draco was back in his office, alone, he closed the door behind him and leaned against it, burying his face in his hands. He hadn’t known what he’d wanted - hadn’t even really known he’d wanted _anything_ \- but Potter was it. Exactly.

Draco floo-called Pansy that night when he got home, and the moment she saw him, before he’d even had a chance to open his mouth, she shooed him back out of the fire and came through.

“Oh, darling,” she said, standing close and studying his face. “I wondered when you’d realize.” She wrapped her arms around him, and Draco relaxed into the embrace. They stood that way for a long time, holding onto each other just in front of Draco’s fireplace in the middle of his half-lit sitting room, Pansy’s hands rubbing soothingly over Draco’s back, and Draco’s breath only hitching occasionally.

* * *

Draco woke on Saturday an hour before his alarm was set to go off and lay in bed wide awake, his skin clammy and his stomach feeling like he’d eaten a box of Peppermint Toads. He’d been halfway hoping, before he’d asked her, that Pansy would have plans already and wouldn’t be able to go with him to Weasley Park. But no, she’d not had anything in particular going on and had agreed right away, and so that was that. Draco was going to walk into the lions’ den.

Rather literally, really. He hoped that Gryffindors could be placated with ice cream.

Draco dragged slowly through his morning routine after his alarm went off. He longed to see Potter again, and yet also longed for more time apart so that his emotions could perhaps cool down from their current boil. He was eager to see what people thought of his ice cream, but at the same time dreaded walking into the middle of Potter’s extended group of friends. Draco was excited and horrified all at once, and by the time he arrived at his office to organize everything for the trip, he was starting to think he’d need to redo his grooming charms, he felt like such a mess.

Pansy arrived at precisely ten-forty-five in the morning and immediately shoved a large mug of chocolate in Draco’s hands. Draco didn’t even attempt to protest. How she knew that he wouldn’t have managed any real food with his nervous stomach he didn’t know, but she clearly did. So instead of arguing the point, Draco sat on the edge of his desk and sipped the hot, sweet concoction while letting Pansy finish shrinking the bottles of ice cream mix and boxes of assorted toppings. She told him about what their Slytherin year-mates had been up to lately as she worked, since - as she put it - he’d been hiding away down here for the last two weeks.

By the time everything was ready it was just past eleven, Draco’s mug was empty, and he’d learned all about Blaise’s new girlfriend, Millicent’s holiday in the British Virgin Islands, and the trouble Tracey was having with her fifth-years as she prepared them for their Potions O.W.L.s. Or to put it another way, Draco felt much better, though there was still a tension buzzing in his spine and making his hands tremble slightly. Still, it was a minor enough discomfort that Draco could attempt to ignore it as he and Pansy tucked the shrunken packages in their pockets and each carefully took one box containing half of the deconstructed ice cream apparatus.

Draco figured that what with the time it would take for him to set up once they got to the park, and considering he didn’t know when exactly they were intending to eat lunch, it would be best to arrive somewhat before noon. Slightly after eleven was a little earlier than he’d been planning, but it gave him some extra time in case not everything went smoothly, and seeing as how he hadn’t arranged a particular time to arrive, there was no one to inconvenience. Draco hesitated on the hearth nevertheless, balancing his box on a hip and with floo powder slipping between his fingers. He still wasn’t entirely convinced this was a good idea.

He threw the powder in the fire and stepped through anyway.

Draco stepped out the other side into cheerful noise. All of the mismatched chairs on the other end of the room were filled. He could hear more people in the next room over, and perhaps even more from elsewhere in the house. He didn’t immediately recognize a single face amongst those he could see, though part of that was probably because at least half of the crowd consisted of house-elves. No one paid him much mind, occupied as they were with their conversations.

The fire flared behind him and Draco hurriedly stepped away just before Pansy came through. He noticed that though she also stopped and stared at the scene for a moment, _she_ remembered to move away from the fire before doing so. Draco mentally berated himself. His floo manners lately had been atrocious. He could still feel the ghost of Potter’s arm around his waist if he thought about it.

Pansy’s voice cut through his thoughts. “So, where are we setting up?”

 _Oh dear_.

“I… I don’t actually know. I’d assumed it would be in here, since this is where we had lunch together the first day, but this crowd is much larger.”

Pansy gave a small huff. “Well, let’s find someone who knows, then.” She approached the group in the chairs, receiving some familiar greetings, and Draco drifted in the direction of the room across the corridor. Perhaps, he thought, there would be someone there he was more comfortable with.

The group of people clustered around two freestanding chalkboards that hadn’t been there the last time Draco had seen the room didn’t notice him at first, positioned as they all were with their backs to him. Draco recognized one of them, though. Even from behind, that straggly blonde hair and the wand tucked behind her ear made her hard to mistake for anyone else.

Draco swallowed hard.

After the trials following the war, his family had paid reparations to the scant handful of people who had survived their stay in the Manor dungeons. Some, like Dean Thomas, had accepted the money and then proceeded to conspicuously ignore Draco whenever they encountered each other in public for several years. Others, like Mr Ollivander, refused the money (what was money to the premiere wandmaker in Britain, Draco supposed) and peered curiously at Draco whenever their paths crossed, eyes never leaving him until he was fully out of sight. All of that was fair, Draco thought. Possibly more fair than he really deserved.

Luna Lovegood was something else entirely, as usual. She accepted the money because, she said, it would make her father happy to have more funds for their research into Crumple-Horned Snorkacks “and other things,” which Draco had taken to mean the absurd and impossible. She then informed him that he had a severe infestation of Wrackspurts and attempted to strike up a friendship with him.

Draco had spent the next two years ducking into alleys, hiding in toilets, and outright apparating away whenever he caught so much as a glimpse of straggly blonde hair. He’d known before that she was a bit loony, but at that point he’d decided she was outright mad, and that it wasn’t right at all to let her forgive him so easily, not when he knew that her faculties weren’t all there. He’d done nothing to deserve her forgiveness, after all, and out of everyone, she was one of those he’d wronged the most.

Now, more than a decade out from the war, Luna had become a well-known magizoologist, studying alongside such renowned figures as Rolf Scamander, grandson of Newt Scamander. He’d even heard from Greg, who was always rather fond of magical creatures, that she’d discovered a theretofore unknown species (which made Draco a little nervous, as the Wrackspurts comment had haunted him for quite some time). Draco had accepted a few years back, in the face of her achievements, that she was probably not quite mad, though still a bit loony, and that she was an incredibly good, kind person, willing to forgive just about any slight against her. Draco still wasn’t sure he deserved her forgiveness, but then, he also wasn’t sure he ever would. It was probably no use arguing the point, at any rate.

Just as Draco was gathering the scraps of his courage and preparing to speak, one of the house-elves in the group turned around, saw him standing there, and said,

“Oh!”

Then all at once Draco had six sets of eyes trained on him, and he didn’t know why he’d ever agreed to this.

“Draco!” Luna exclaimed happily as the others all eyed him. The house-elves, at least, all looked nothing more than curious. Now that they were facing him, though, Draco could identify the other two humans in the group as Terry Boot and Susan Bones, and both were staring at him with suspicion plain on their faces. Bones even looked like she might protest his presence there. He couldn’t say he blamed her.

“Lovegood,” Draco greeted in the least-terrified voice he could muster, which came out stiff. Luna was moving just a little too close for comfort, and sweat broke out on the back of Draco’s neck.

“Come now, Draco, call me Luna. Oh, I’m glad to see you’re looking so much better. Not nearly as many Wrackspurts.” Draco’s sweat went a little cold. He still had some, then? Had Wrackspurts turned out to be real after all, or were they imaginary?

“Ah, thank you, Luna. You’re looking very well.” She was, too. She looked happy and healthy, and her hair was slightly sun-touched, as if she were spending a lot of time outdoors.

Luna beamed at him. “Thank you, Draco. What have you got there? Is it sweets? I’ve heard you’re making sweets for Harry.”

Draco shifted his grip on the box. His arms were beginning to hurt. “Something like that. Potter suggested I bring this by for lunch today.” That wasn’t exactly how it had happened, but it was barely a lie. It made it sound like he had more right to be there than he did, too, which was probably for the best, if the way that Bones looked slightly less hostile at that declaration was anything to go by. Luna was studying him critically. “It’s ice cream,” he offered, wondering if that was what she wanted to know.

“Ice cream? Wonderful! Have you got any lemon?” Draco supposed his face gave her the answer, for she shook her head and said, rather sadly, “No one ever has lemon.”

Draco wasn’t terribly surprised they didn’t. Mixing citrus with milk was certainly possible, but a somewhat tricky prospect. “At the moment all I’ve got are vanilla and chocolate, but…” Draco looked at Luna’s big, silvery eyes, and abruptly made a decision. “I am taking flavour suggestions, though. For ice cream as well as sauces.” Draco looked at Boot and Bones as well, attempting to invite them in and lend credibility to his claim. Sure, he’d decided to do it on a whim, to please Luna, but it wasn’t half a bad idea, especially since Potter hadn’t offered up any suggestions when prompted the day before.

“Oh, Pipsy has a suggestion, then!” Draco looked down at the house-elf who had first spotted him. He’d nearly forgotten the elves were there. This didn’t seem to bother Pipsy, though, or perhaps she just had no idea she’d almost been literally overlooked, as she smiled brightly and squeaked out, “Strawberry is always an ice cream favourite!”

Draco blinked. Of _course_ it was, he knew that, but for some reason it hadn’t occurred to him to make a strawberry mix. He nodded down at the house-elf in her miniature Muggle clothes and tried to tuck _lemon_ and _strawberry_ to the back of his mind somewhere so he could remember them once he was able to put his box down and pull out his notebook.

“Thank you, that’s a good idea.” Draco looked back to Luna. “Do you- does anybody know where you’ll be having lunch today, by the way? I should start getting this set up, but I don’t…”

“Of course,” Luna replied, “We should be outside the grill in Jovi Alley, as usual. Would you like me to show you?”

“Yes,” Draco said, and after a moment added awkwardly, “Thank you.”

After retrieving Pansy from her conversation - she’d gotten even more sidetracked than Draco - Luna led them out of the house.

“Oh,” Pansy breathed as soon as they passed the castle walls. Luna smiled and paused to allow Pansy to stare, a little awestruck, out over the park. It looked mostly the same as the last time Draco had seen it, but the view was no less impressive. The Ridgeback was nearly complete now, and as Draco watched, he could see a massive support beam being levitated through the air. The two specks in the sky were, he assumed, people on brooms helping to guide the beam into place. He couldn’t see the the people doing the levitating from this distance, although he might have done if there weren’t trees in the way. Draco frowned. Had that small patch of forest at the bottom of the hill always been there?

“Neville’s worked very hard lately. Isn’t it astonishing?” Luna said, stepping over beside Draco.

Yes, yes it was fucking astonishing, Draco thought. “Longbottom… grew an entire forest? In half a month?”

Luna nodded merrily. “He did! We’ve all helped, of course, but it’s been Neville behind it, as well as all the other gardens.”

Draco nodded down at the forest mutely, filing away the new information that Herbologists were actually pretty scary.

Luna took them on a path right through the centre of the park that Draco hadn’t been on before. They passed several rides that Draco had only ever seen from the hilltop, and Luna told them the name of each, even though there were large signs proclaiming most of their names in plain view.

“That’s The Giant Squid,” she said of a many-armed metal beast that Draco _supposed_ looked somewhat like a squid.

“There’s the Jack-o-Whirl. You climb in the pumpkins and they spin around, it’s such fun. I wouldn’t recommend riding it right after lunch, though.” Draco nodded and tried not to picture how that might turn out.

“Ooh, this one’s the Ferocious Fanged Flyer.” The ride she pointed to appeared to be something like a massive pendulum, and even Pansy eyed it uncertainly. “It swings,” Luna motioned with her arms as to how, and oh no, Draco did not like the angles this thing apparently swung to at all. Not one little bit. “And it spins, too. When the Ferris Wheel is spinning in the background as well, oh,” Luna’s eyes were starry, “it’s quite the experience.”

Draco supposed it would be. He felt a little sick just thinking about it.

“What’s your favourite ride?” Luna asked as they took the short loop around the enormous Ferris Wheel. Up close, it was rather a bit larger than Draco had imagined.

“I don’t know,” Draco replied somewhat absently, staring up at the wheel towering over them. “I haven’t been on any.”

“No?” Luna sounded genuinely surprised. “I thought I’d heard Harry had given you the tour.”

“He did, but that was business. So I could get a feel for the park and create appropriate sweets.”

Draco couldn’t read the glance that Luna threw over her shoulder at him at all. “Nothing wrong with mixing a little pleasure with business,” she said, and Draco struggled not to choke on air. There wasn’t anything to read into it, he admonished himself. All she meant by ‘pleasure’ was fun, not… everything else that Draco’s traitorous mind helpfully provided.

“What’s your favourite ride?” he asked, desperate to shift the focus back off of himself again.

Luna ‘hmm’ed for a bit, seeming to take the question quite seriously. “The Bumper Bubbles, perhaps. They’re wonderful with friends. Or The Runespoor, if there aren’t enough to play Bumper Bubbles properly.” Her eyes were starry again. “It’s bracing.”

Draco stared, remembering the way The Runespoor had shot away from its platform. He had suspected for a number of years that Luna was more brave than he was, but it was in that moment that he truly confirmed it.

Draco knew that they were approaching the designated lunch area before he actually saw the grill. Delightful scents of cooking meat drifted up Jovi Alley to curl around them just as they stepped onto main street.

Pansy hummed her approval. “What are they making?”

“I have no idea,” Luna replied happily, “It smells lovely, doesn’t it?”

The grill turned out to be about halfway down the long main street of Jovi Alley, just around a corner where a wide side-street broke away. Half a dozen or so of the round, umbrella-ed tables Draco had sat at before had been moved off to the side, and three long tables had been conjured in their place. They were larger than the space was intended for, obstructing most of the path, but Draco supposed that didn’t much matter when the park wasn’t open yet. The restaurant itself consisted entirely of a long wooden counter and an inaccessible indoor area, intended only for customers to order and receive their food.

“Hello!” An auburn-haired woman with a sensible but friendly face who Draco didn’t recognize called to them from behind the counter as they approached.

“Hello, Audrey!” Luna replied, leading them over.

The inside of the building seemed much larger than the outside, and it was hopping with activity. People in the back were chopping potatoes, frying chips, mixing pitchers of juice, stacking plates, running boxes back and forth, and who knew what else, the frenzy being a little more than Draco could entirely take in. Audrey herself was single-handedly manning an impressive array of grills near the front of the shop, each of them loaded with sausages. Draco’s stomach growled. Even a whiff of the sausage from far away had smelled good, but up close and with the chips and juice mixed in, it was outright heavenly.

“Luna,” Audrey said warmly, taking a moment between flipping sausages with quick, practised movements to smile at her. “Come to help? Who have you brought me?” She threw another glance over, at Draco and Pansy that time, open and happy. Something odd stabbed in Draco’s heart. When was the last time someone - besides Pansy - had looked at him like that, properly happy and with nothing simmering under the surface?

“I can’t stay,” Luna replied apologetically. “Neville is expecting me back. Is Bill not here yet?”

Audrey shook her head. “No, I’m grilling alone today. Full moon, so he’s not feeling too well. You know how it is.”

Luna nodded understandingly, though Audrey’s attention was focused on loading sausages from the leftmost grills onto a platter, so Draco doubted she caught the gesture. Audrey placed the platter on the counter and smiled again when Luna sniffed them appreciatively.

“Since you’re here, though, could you-“ she waved her index finger around like a wand as she turned back to the grills, “-keep those warm for me?”

 _Oh_.

Draco watched as Audrey filled the empty grills with more sausages. She did everything by hand. She did everything by hand, _and_ she didn’t recognize him or Pansy, _and_ she asked for help with magic. Audrey was a Muggle. Draco tried to exchange a glance with Pansy, but she wasn’t looking, instead studying the kitchen with interest. Of course she was, Draco thought, she was probably comparing it to the kitchen at the Leaky.

“So,” Audrey said the next time she had a moment to turn around, looking at Draco and Pansy.

“Ah yes, Audrey, this is Draco and Pansy. They’ve brought dessert. Draco, Pansy, this is Audrey. She makes wonderful hot dogs.

“They’re not hot dogs,” a woman about Draco’s age called from the back where she was directing pumpkins to juice themselves. She looked dreadfully familiar, but Draco couldn’t place her, and her accent was mostly American. “They’re sausages in buns! Still wonderful, though.”

Audrey laughed brightly. “Thanks, you two.” Then, at Draco and Pansy, “Good to meet you. Are one of you the infamous candy-maker I’ve heard rumours about?”

Draco felt heat flood his face as Pansy laughed and nudged his shoulder. He cleared his throat. “That would be me. It’s nice to meet you, too. I dread to ask what you’ve heard about me.”

Audrey laughed again. “Nothing terrible, I promise! Do you want to set up in here? There’s a little space up front here.” She motioned at the front corner opposite where she’d put the platter of sausages. “It’s not so easy to see from your side, but there’s a workspace just behind the counter, and no one’s using it at the moment.”

“That would be perfect, thank you.”

(It wouldn’t occur to Draco for several hours that he had thanked a Muggle, or that he’d done so and meant it genuinely.)

* * *

A little over half an hour later, lunch was nearly ready. The ice cream apparatus had sustained no damage going through the floo, as Draco had worried it might, and it reassembled perfectly. Pansy had conjured some posterboard and Audrey had produced a handful of brightly-coloured Muggle writing implements from her handbag. The incredibly familiar woman with the American accent - who turned out to be Sally-Anne Perks, who’d been in Draco’s year at Hogwarts but transferred to Ilvermorny after their second year when her mother got a job in America - took them and made a brilliant sign detailing what Draco was offering, along with smaller labels for each of the different platters of sausages.

Everyone in the kitchen received a sample of ice cream early - including Pansy, who fit in immediately - with Audrey being particularly delighted, though she had to eat her vanilla with butterscotch sauce in the scant moments she had between attending to her array of loaded grills. Draco felt a little stab of discontent when he saw that the last of it had melted, but the next time Audrey could turn away from the sausages she picked up the little bowl and drank the last bit happily.

As the clock hanging high on the wall of the kitchen ticked over to noon, Audrey took the last sausages off the grill and stacked them on top of the ‘beef’ platter, not pausing for one second in her rambling, complex train of thought, even as she waved her finger in a request for Draco to set a warming charm, which he did. Audrey had turned out to be fiendishly well-versed in magical theory for someone who not only had been introduced to it as an adult, but who couldn’t cast magic herself.

“I can’t visit the stars, either, but I can tell you what they’re made of,” she’d replied when Draco had boggled slightly at her understanding of his ice cream apparatus. Audrey was something the Muggles called an astrophysicist, which was nothing Draco had ever heard of before. More helpfully, he’d found out she was Percy Weasley’s wife (the swot Weasley, Draco thought to himself), and that after marrying into the family she’d become fast friends with Hermione Granger-Weasley (the queen of all swots), which meant that she was, most likely, a hardcore swot herself. Draco had taken her knowledge of magic as par for the course after that, and made a note to find out what ‘astrophysics’ was in his notebook right beside the hastily-scrawled reminder ‘lemon’ and ‘strawberry’.

“The problem is,” Draco responded, refreshing the pest-repelling charms on the food, “In this case, the liquid responds differently to the spells than the solid does. And since the ice cream formula can’t be changed much, the spell itself needs to be altered.”

Audrey nodded thoughtfully. “That makes sense. I hadn’t thought of it before, but now that you’ve said it, different states of matter reacting differently to magic makes perfect sense. Perhaps something like that is what’s happening with the rapids ride?”

Draco leaned back from the counter and looked her way. “Is that thing still a mess?”

“It’s worse, actually. I don’t know when you last saw it, but it’s worse now.” Audrey shook her head, sighing. “I’ve offered to find out the non-magic way to do it, you know? Figured at this point that working out a way to ward magic away from the mechanics might be easier, but as it turns out, part of the trouble they’re having is a residual magic effect from some of the earlier spells they tried that they haven’t quite been able to fully dispel-“

“ _Residual, half-dispelled magic?_ No _wonder_ they’re having trouble, _Merlin_ -“

“I _know_ , it’s a miracle no one’s blown themselves up yet. Most of the magic for the rides they’ve just made up as they’re going along. George is pretty brilliant at it, with the experience he has, but,” she smiled fondly, “Harry’s often seem to work through nothing more than sheer strength of will.”

“Let me guess,” Draco drawled, “Potter is the one who did the first work on the rapids?”

“Yes, indeed. Because they needed water jets, he adapted one of the spells he used for the fountain.”

Something pinged in the back of Draco’s mind. Wasn’t there something odd about the fountain, too? He looked out the front of the shop, as if turning in the vague direction of the still waters of the fountain would remind him, and there, about fifteen feet away, stopped in mid stride and flanked by Ronald and Granger, was Potter.

Whatever thought that had been in Draco’s head vaporized and he stared. Potter looked… Potter looked bloody _fantastic_. He was wearing Muggle clothes again, but the shirt was- it was _tight_ , there was no other word for it, and Draco didn’t have to use any imagination to see every individual muscular curve of Potter’s chest and shoulders and _arms_. Oh Merlin, the man was a little _burly_ , and he looked sort of dusty and dirty, like he’d been working outdoors all morning, which actually he probably _had_ , and _and_ -

Draco had no idea why Potter looking like he’d performed manual labour in Muggle clothes was something he found attractive, considering he was neither fond of dirt and was _especially_ not fond of sweat, nor was he a huge fan of Muggle fashion. Then again, he hadn’t thought he was all that crazy about Potter himself until the previous day, so perhaps this all came with the ‘I Fancy Potter Package Deal.’

Draco was vaguely aware that something had made a high-pitched squeaking noise, not unlike one of his mother’s Crup’s obnoxious toys being trodden on, and then as he watched Ronald nudge Potter forward Draco realized that _he himself_ had made that noise. Draco glanced at Audrey, who was mercifully pretending not to have noticed his reaction, though there was absolutely no way she’d missed it. Draco busied himself unnecessarily rearranging the ice cream toppings, trying to will his face to stop burning.

“Hey.”

Draco looked up. Potter was right on the other side of the counter, an odd, complicated expression on his face.

“Hello.” Draco’s voice came out like he’d forgotten how to breathe. On second thought, he _had_ forgotten how to breathe.

“Hey,” Potter said again, sounding a little hoarse himself. He’d probably spent the morning shouting orders and otherwise coordinating the construction efforts. “You came.”

“Pansy didn’t have any plans, so…”

Potter nodded, a lopsided smile breaking across his face. “That’s great.”

Draco nodded back for lack of anything to say, and an awkward silence stretched between them. Draco couldn’t quite tear his eyes away from Potter’s face, and Potter, for some bloody unknown reason, held his gaze. It was torturous but also just vaguely rapturous - Potter’s green eyes, all that warmth focused right on him, and Draco was burning up from the inside out.

“Oi, Harry, you going to hog the ice cream counter?”

Potter looked away, and Draco found the strength to remove his own gaze from Potter’s unfairly pleasant visage. Seamus Finnigan had approached and, now that Draco was looking, there were quite a few others who had arrived for lunch. Some were loading up plates with hot dogs and chips and not paying Draco much mind, but others - from a quick scan, Draco could spot Granger and at least two red Weasley heads among them - were forming into a queue. A queue leading to him. A queue that was quickly backing up.

“What can I get for you?” Draco blurted in Finnigan’s general direction, still eyeing the crowd. More people still were arriving from the direction of main street. The amusement park was supposed to be a secret, but from the number of people gathered, Draco was getting the feeling that he’d been one of the very last people in wizarding Britain to learn about it. At the very least, one of the last from his year at Hogwarts.

“I’d like a vanilla with… pumpkin sauce? Yeah, pumpkin sauce.”

“Cone or cup?”

Finnigan frowned at the plate of food already in his hands. “Cup, I guess.” Draco nodded and got to it. “You’ll have to come back again sometime. It’s been ages since I had soft whip in a cone. Or at all, actually.”

“Soft whip?” Draco asked, handing the ice cream over the counter. That sounded like a phrase he could reasonably use, so long as it wasn’t another brand name.

“Yeah,” Finnigan replied unhelpfully. Then he turned away. “Thanks, Malfoy,” he called over his shoulder, and retreated.

By the time the last person had come through his queue, Draco was sticky up to his elbows, nearly out of vanilla mix and completely out of pumpkin sauce, and had accumulated over a page and a half of flavour suggestions. Potter had disappeared from the other side of the counter some time ago, and Pansy had finally left to eat after he’d assured her that he was almost finished some fifteen minutes earlier.

Draco barely paid attention as he washed up and gathered his own lunch together, heaping the plate with perhaps a few too many chips. Instead, his mind was reeling at the thoughts he’d barely had time for as he played ice cream man. He’d have to see the shop they were planning to use for the ice cream, he thought, figure out how many apparatuses he’d need to make, maybe make a second one for the very next weekend just so someone else could lighten the load and it wouldn’t take so long to serve everyone. Or perhaps he ought to make it sturdier, so that it was easier to carry and less likely to break once it was officially installed? No, he ought to do _both_ , obviously, he decided. And which of the suggestions should he turn into real flavours, and how many of them?

“Draco!”

Draco was so absorbed in his thoughts he didn’t even notice Audrey attempting to wave him over until she called his name. He smiled and headed in her direction before he noticed that her companions at the table were Granger and three assorted Weasleys, and that the empty space beside her was flanked on the other side by none other than Potter himself.

Draco’s heart flipped in his chest as he kept walking. _This is the best_ , part of him declared - he could get Potter to look over the list of flavour suggestions, talk to him about the ice cream shop, and as a bonus, they were going to be sitting _quite_ close together. _This is the worst_ , the rest of him yelled back - he was _not_ ready to sit down _right next_ to Potter. Not at all! How was he going to eat if he couldn’t even breathe? Not to even mention the smorgasbord of other Gryffindor war heroes sitting _right there_. This was _not_ a good idea.

Draco sat down anyway.

It turned out to not be such a terrible idea after all. Potter was extremely interested in picking out some more ice cream flavours, and he, Ronald, and the dragon tamer Weasley bent over the suggestion sheet in deep discussion. Granger grilled Draco about the ice cream apparatus and the type of spellwork he did in his job, with Percy and Audrey occasionally wedging in a word or two. Draco even managed to eat somehow, despite the way his and Potter’s thighs were pressed against each other beneath the table, making Draco feel rather as though he’d already eaten a full meal of molten lava. His complexion was never going to recover from this ordeal, Draco thought at one point when Potter glanced over and gave him a warm smile, making heat scorch his face even worse than it already was. Still, as Draco returned the smile with a slight, nervous one of his own and a small sniff, he felt like going permanently red in the face might just be worth it.

By the time Draco finished his lunch, the crowd was thinning as everyone returned to their tasks. Potter had finished his own meal quite some time ago, but seemed reluctant to leave, and he busied himself by looking over the new flavour shortlist for the fifth time. He chewed on his lower lip, and Draco’s eyes locked onto the movement. Potter’s lips looked a little chapped, he thought, but- Potter shifted and bit into the soft flesh again, and it was all Draco could do to not make any horrendous groaning, moaning, or (Merlin forbid) _squeaking_ noises. Potter’s lips were a little chapped, Draco thought, but were also plush and eminently kissable, and honestly Draco was glad that the crowd had nearly cleared out and that Granger had refocused her attention onto the list of flavours. All the fewer people to witness Draco Malfoy lusting after Potter. He was certain that anyone who looked at him would be able to see it - emotional subtlety was apparently not one of his strong points. He only hoped he’d manage to cast a discreet Notice-Me-Not at his crotch before he needed to stand up; emotions on his face were one thing, but _no one_ needed to see _that_ , thank you very much.

“What do you think about these?” Potter asked, sliding the list back to Draco.

“I still think it’s too many fruit flavours,” Granger commented, then looked at Draco and frowned, looking vaguely puzzled. She opened her mouth as if to say something, hesitated - Draco tried to will himself to sink through the ground because there was no way in hell that _Granger_ of all people couldn’t see what was in front of her and if _that_ wasn’t just bloody mortifying - then she closed her mouth again, took a breath, and instead said, “You need to break it up with something else. Mint is still a possibility.”

Potter shrugged, apparently oblivious to Draco’s boiling distress, though Draco had no idea how even Potter  could manage to be quite that thick. Merlin, Potter could probably feel his pulse they were sitting so close together, yet he still didn’t know? “I don’t see the problem. It’s not like people are meant to stand around sampling all the flavours in a row. And they’re all sweet, in the end.”

Or perhaps Potter was simply being kind, and wasn’t bringing it up because he didn’t want to humiliate Draco? He might be better at hiding his true thoughts behind a friendly smile than Draco had previously thought. Draco looked down at the list.

“Much as I hate to admit it, Potter is right, Granger,” Draco said, the words falling out of his mouth without any forethought and somehow, miraculously, in a perfectly normal tone. Draco thanked every last one of his lucky stars. “This is still too many in general, however. The apparatus can only handle six flavours total, not six new ones. You need to get rid of two more.”

“Oh, hm.” Potter frowned and bent over the paper again.

Granger sent Draco another look, eyes flicking between himself and Potter, and Draco ducked his head. He really did not need to watch her thought process on this matter develop. They fell into silence once again.

Draco just about shot out of his seat as a pair of arms wrapped around him from behind unexpectedly. “Draco, darling.”

“Pansy,” he wheezed in reply. Pansy continued to drape herself over his shoulders, which was slightly odd. Perhaps she’d had a tiff with her new friends from the kitchen?

“Are you intending to take this all back home soon?” she asked, wiggling slightly against him. Draco frowned, and if she hadn’t been at such an impossible angle he’d have turned to direct the look at her. What in the world was she doing? Granger was still watching, her own frown growing more pronounced by the second.

“Not very soon,” Draco responded, wondering if he should try to wrest Pansy’s arms from his person or if he should just let the situation play itself out. “I need to have a look around the ice cream shop.”

“I could show you,” Granger said, eyes flicking to Potter.

Draco followed her gaze. Potter had turned up from the list just enough to look at him, expression strange and flat and slightly lost. Draco couldn’t blame him, Pansy was Draco’s best friend and even he was rather confused.

“I’m sure you’re busy,” Pansy said to Granger amicably, and Draco was instantly certain that she was working some sort of angle. “Audrey would be happy to show Draco around, and she doesn’t have any construction to return to.”

With that, Draco found himself being pulled bodily from his seat - Salazar’s _tits_ , but he forgot how strong Pansy was sometimes - and dragged over to the grill’s counter. Audrey, who was boxing up leftover sausages, gave them a bemused look. Ronald, who was helping her, scowled.

“That’s cheating. You’re cheating.”

Pansy gave Ronald an utterly unrepentant grin and tossed her hair. “I’m a Slytherin! You knew what you were getting into.” Ronald humphed and shook his head.

It was Draco’s turn to scowl. What sort of game were they playing, and honestly, couldn’t they have left him out of it? “What-“ Draco began, but Pansy grinned and pecked him on the cheek.

“Don’t worry about it, Draco, dear.” Draco gave her a dubious frown, which she ignored. “Audrey, do you know where the future ice cream shop is? Draco needs a look around the place.”

Audrey turned a sympathetic smile on Draco that he found he appreciated immensely. “Sure, I can show you. Do you need to go now?”

Draco shook his head, finally deciding it was time to extract himself from Pansy’s apparently devious clutches. “You can finish up here, no rush. I still need to collect the final list of flavours from Potter, anyway.” He shot Pansy a pointed look, but she just shrugged. Draco decided he’d had enough. “Also, I don’t know what you two are up to, Weasley, but I’m telling on you to your wife.” Draco turned on his heel to the sound of Ronald’s squawk and Audrey’s laughter.

“Apologies for Pansy,” Draco said as he returned to the table. Potter didn’t look at him, head bent over the list and apparently deep in thought. Granger frowned at Potter, then looked up at him.

“She’s certainly… energetic.”

Draco snorted. “She’s up to something. So is your husband, by the way. I can’t do anything about Pansy, but if you could attend to Ronald-“ Granger snorted this time, and Draco faltered. “What?”

“You call him _Ronald_?” Granger was dissolving into a fit of giggles. Draco crossed his arms over his chest and stuck his nose in the air.

“I can’t very well call him Weasley anymore, can I? No one would ever know who I was speaking of.” Granger continued to giggle, and Draco grumbled and rolled his eyes. “In any case, I don’t terribly appreciate my work being interrupted by their little game, or whatever, so if you could talk to your husband whenever you’ve finished laughing at me-“

Granger stood from the table, still laughing, and waved a hand at him in what Draco thought was an entirely too dismissive manner. “Calm down, Malfoy, I’ll talk to him.” As she began to walk away, she said “Ronald!” under her breath and burst into giggles anew.

Draco sighed and sat back on the bench beside Potter, facing away from the table. “Are your friends always like this?” Potter still hadn’t looked at him since his return and didn’t immediately answer, and Draco shifted a little uncomfortably. Perhaps he wasn’t that pleased with the distraction, either. Well, Draco could appreciate that. “Have you worked out which ones you want?”

Potter finally looked at him - Draco couldn’t read his face - and slid him the paper with a sigh. Draco took it without really looking at which flavours Potter had ultimately chosen. Something seemed slightly… off.

“If you really don’t want to limit it to just these, I could theoretically make a larger apparatus…”

Potter shook his head and let out a breath, half a laugh and half a sigh. He turned on the bench to face the same way as Draco. “No, it’s not that.”

“Oh.” Draco fidgeted with the list, the knowledge that it was _something_ ringing in the air between them. “I truly do apologize about Pansy. There hasn’t been this much excitement in my life for several years, so she’s had precious little opportunity to properly antagonize me.”

Potter squinted at him for a moment, and Draco fidgeted some more, feeling very much as though Potter’s critical gaze was cutting right through him.

“Right. Are you two…?” Potter glanced at Pansy - who was in the process of laughing her arse off while Ronald was scolded by his still-occasionally-giggling wife - then back at Draco. Draco jolted in his seat.

“Oh, Merlin, no! No, definitely not. We did try once, as teenagers, but… I mean, she’s my best friend, and I do love her, but we’re just not… She’s just very affectionate. And also obnoxious. Affectio-noxious.” Draco buried his face in one hand and mourned the loss of his sanity. “Salazar help me, what in the world am I saying?”

Beside him, Potter began to chuckle. Draco chanced a peek at him between his fingers.

“Affectio-noxious?” Potter’s whole face had lit up, green eyes sparkling and smile charmingly lopsided as he looked at Draco. A warmth flared in Draco’s chest. “And you made fun of me for Choo-Choocolate Express?”

Draco groaned and closed his eyes again.

Then, for the second time in ten minutes, an arm wrapped around Draco’s shoulders. This wasn’t Pansy’s _affectio-noxious_ teasing arms, however, but a larger one, warm and soft. Draco’s breath caught, and he pulled his hand away from his face entirely to look at Potter in shock.

“No, Malfoy, mate, if you’re pulling out gems like ‘affectio-noxious,’ then you’re worse than me. I didn’t know it was possible to be worse than me. You are well and truly fucked.”

Draco leaned just slightly into the warmth of Potter’s embrace, and Potter let him. _Well and truly fucked?_ Didn’t Draco damn well know it.

* * *

The week passed in a whirlwind of ice cream and teasing. Pansy refused to tell him what she and Ronald were up to, but he suspected they had some sort of bet on. That the bet apparently had something to do with him fancying Potter rankled Draco thoroughly, but he’d done worse to Pansy in the past, so he gritted his teeth and let her have her fun.

Draco was able to carry the newly-reinforced ice cream apparatus by himself easily enough, but Pansy met him on Saturday morning anyway. They arrived early enough to help with lunch preparations from the beginning, and Draco had a delightful time talking magical theory and Muggle science with Audrey, and a somewhat more awkward time meeting Bill Weasley, while they all prepared burgers and chips. When the lunch rush began, Draco ducked his head against the brilliant smile Luna gave him when he handed over a cone of lemon ice cream.

“It’s more lemon cream than pure lemon,” he warned as she bit the curl off the top. “It’s not a terribly sharp flavour.”

Luna beamed at him anyway, looking more like he’d given her a priceless treasure than an ice cream. “It’s wonderful, Draco. Thank you.” Draco ducked his head again and mumbled an excuse about it being Potter who had picked out the flavours, but he couldn’t deny the warm glow in his chest.

That glow turned into a fire when Potter arrived and, after looking startled for a moment, gave him a smile that rivaled Luna’s.

“You came again,” Potter said, eyes bright and wondering.

“Well, of course. I had to test out the new flavours, after all. My coworkers are all thoroughly sick of ice cream at this point, and they’re not a large enough sample size anyway.”

Potter looked at Draco a little uncertainly then, and Draco huffed, shoving a cup of attractive pink-and-peach ice cream across the counter at him.

“Here, it’s half strawberry, half peach. Tell me what you think.”

It was good, of course, because it was something sweet and Draco had made it, and Potter relaxed again as he tried it out. Potter stayed on the other side of the counter even as a queue formed, and Draco dished out ice cream for the masses, chatting amicably about sweets and Quidditch and Potter’s godson.

After lunch, Draco somehow found himself recruited by Luna and Audrey to help with decorating the inside of one of the myriad shops sprinkled around the park. When he finally got home late that evening, he found a splash of bright green paint on the hem of his robes, but for some reason he found it difficult to mind too terribly.

Draco worked on the No-Melt charm all the next week, and by Friday evening had blown up so many bowls of ice cream mix that he was certain that both he and his office would smell like vanilla until the end of days, but had, for his trouble, a full set of No-Melt ice cream mixes ready for Saturday morning. When he arrived at the usual grill midmorning, Sally-Anne delightedly made him a brand-new sign declaring ‘NO-MELT Soft Whip Ice Cream - vanilla, chocolate, lemon, strawberry, peach, mint.’

By the end of lunch, it was clear that the breakaway favourite was the lemon, which ran out entirely less than halfway through (to the great disappointment of much of the second half of the queue), though the vanilla with pumpkin sauce remained a strong second. Potter even worked the apparatus for part of the time, when Draco invited him around to try it out after finally growing a little overwhelmed by the way Potter had been staring at him from across the counter like Draco was making all his dreams come true. Potter laughed as he made lopsided ice creams, and he laughed even more when Draco came up behind him, heart pounding, and guided his hands as he made Granger’s cup of mint-and-chocolate.

Draco had come prepared for painting this time, in an older robe that had frankly seen better days, and Luna and Audrey didn’t disappoint, dragging him off to another half-finished shop interior, this time with Sally-Anne and Pansy trailing behind. They worked late enough that eventually Longbottom came around and told them they were wrapping up for the night, but that everyone was welcome to come to the Leaky for food and drinks. His eyes flicked briefly to Draco, but his expression didn’t change, and he didn’t rescind the offer.

Thus, after a small amount of wheedling by Luna and a question from Pansy about if he had anything he could eat at home (he didn’t, or at least there was nothing easy), Draco found himself crammed into an only slightly Enlarged booth at the Leaky Cauldron, Luna to one side and Potter to the other. It was a somewhat quiet gathering, as it turned out, subdued slightly by the exhaustion of a long day’s work, but no less cosy for it, shepherd’s pies,  pints, and all. Draco endured several knowing looks but no unfriendly ones, and he was the most content he’d felt in years.

That, and the warmth of Potter pressed up against his whole right side, was probably why Draco nodded off at some point and had to be roused when everyone was heading home.

“Draco?” Potter’s voice was soft and low, and it filled Draco with a delightful tingling. Draco sighed and snuggled against his warm, not-all-that-soft pillow. “Uh, Draco? You gonna wake up?”

Draco made a noise of complaint. He didn’t _want_ to wake up. He was tired, and warm, and his pillow smelled heavenly.

_Wait, what?_

Draco’s eyes snapped open. His pillow was not his pillow at all. It was Potter’s shoulder, and he was still at the Leaky. Draco wheeled back, colliding with Luna, who simultaneously laughed and made soothing noises at him.

“Merlin- Potter, I’m- I’m so-“ Draco sputtered, neither his mouth nor brain quite at speed, but Potter just smiled that lopsided smile at him, warm like hot chocolate on a winter’s day.

“It’s fine, D- Malfoy, don’t worry about it, it’s all right. You’re not the first person to fall asleep at one of these.”

Draco sighed and rubbed his eyes with one hand. “Still, I-“

Potter shook his head. “Seriously, just last week Seamus fell asleep and face-planted in his pint. You did better than that, at any rate.”

Draco could still feel the heat of Potter’s shoulder against his cheek. He certainly had done better than that. “Well,” Draco huffed, and turned to Luna, “sorry for running into you like that. Are you all right?”

Luna shook her head, smiling. “It’s all right, Draco. I’m just fine. Harry,” Luna looked past him, “why do you call him Draco when he’s asleep and Malfoy when he’s awake?”

Draco’s coherent thoughts sputtered and fizzled out. Potter had stiffened beside him, and Draco turned back slowly. Potter caught his gaze, then broke away again, his face reddening.

“I, uh…” Potter struggled for words for an amount of time that stretched into deeply awkward territory before Luna spoke again.

“You should call each other by your first names, now that you’re friends. Don’t you think so, Draco?”

“Me?! I, um.” Draco looked back to her. Her expression was not at all wily or guileful, but she had to be doing this on purpose, right? She smiled at him, creases forming around her eyes. “I suppose. That would be…” Acceptable? Weird? Awkward? “All right.”

“It would?” Potter sounded surprised. Luna looked at him. “I mean, yeah, it would. Okay.”

Draco felt a smirk tugging at his lips, and he peeked at Potter. It seemed the great hero of the wizarding world was just as susceptible to Luna’s…. _Luna-ness_ , as he himself was. Potter’s eyes met his for a moment, and he huffed out a slightly embarrassed laugh.

“So, uh, Draco.” Potter’s lips twitched, and Draco ducked his head slightly to hide his smile. “We’re about done here for the night. You awake enough to make it home okay?”

“Oh.” Draco looked around. Now that Potter had mentioned it, he had vaguely noticed that their group had thinned considerably. “Yes, I’ll be fine. Thank you, Pot-“ Draco cleared his throat. “Harry.” He tried the name out. It felt… odd, on his tongue. It wasn’t as if he’d never said Potter’s first name before, but this was different. “Thank you, Harry.”

Potter’s expression went all soft. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but then shook his head. Potter slid out of the booth and turned around, offering a hand. Draco gave a slightly deprecative laugh - Potter was nice, and _fuck_ but he liked Potter so bloody much, he was _so_ far gone - and let Potter pull him from the booth.

Perhaps it was that Draco was so tired that he wasn’t quite thinking straight, but standing there close to Potter, their hands still clasped and Potter’s eyes on his face, Draco leaned forward, just slightly. He hadn’t meant to, hadn’t thought to do it, it was more like he was being pulled forward magnetically. It was like Potter - _Harry_ \- was the sun, and Draco was some rock that had fallen wildly out of its orbit, like he and Audrey had been talking about earlier that day. It felt like Harry was the fucking sun and Draco was falling towards him through space, inevitable and irresistible, plunging toward the fire.

Across the room at the bar, Pansy laughed uproariously at something that Hannah said, and Draco, suddenly back in his skin, all but jumped away from Potter. His heart was pounding so hard that Draco would barely be surprised to see it break entirely from his rib cage and make a run for the door.

“Well,” Draco said, looking anywhere but at Potter’s face. His voice was pitched rather too high, but he didn’t think there was anything he could do about it at the moment. He had just nearly _kissed_ Harry Potter. In the middle of the fucking Leaky Cauldron! Without so much as a by-your-leave! “See you next week, Potter?”

Potter stayed silent for a long moment before hesitantly saying, “Yeah?”

“Yes, well, I suppose the ice cream doesn’t need any more testing, but I’m sure it would be missed if I stopped coming. I’ll be sure to bring a better supply of the lemon next time, too.” He didn’t say that _he_ would miss it if he didn’t come. That he’d miss learning about Muggle science from Audrey, and the raucous cheer of the grill’s kitchen, and the smiles on everyone’s faces as he handed them their ice cream. He’d even miss painting, and Granger’s incessant questions, and the awful sensation of being sticky nearly all the way up his arms. He’d miss Potter. He’d miss Potter fucking _desperately_.

Suddenly, Draco felt very lonely. In just a few short weeks, it would all be over. He was nearly finished with his assignment, and then the park would open, and then everything would go back to normal. He’d go to work, and talk to his coworkers, and see Pansy sometimes on the weekends, and that would be it. Possibly for forever.

“Okay. See you then, Mal- Draco.”

Draco shot a glance at him that was too quick to actually see anything. “See you then, Harry.”

Draco fell into bed as soon as he got home, without bothering to change clothes. He buried his face in his pillow and lay there for a long time before finally falling asleep, his heart slamming miserably against his ribs. When he woke late the next morning, his bed smelled of paint and ale and Potter’s cologne.

* * *

Monday morning at the crack of dawn, Draco got up and immediately threw himself into his work. The only thing left was the Dragonpops, and so he set to it. Designing the mould took most of Monday, and formulating the flavours and deciding on dyes took only until lunch on Wednesday, as most of the flavours were already in use for other Honeydukes lollies. Then came the charm.

It was the work of minutes to make a lolly spit fire from its small candy mouth, and not terribly more tricky to make the fire lukewarm and harmless. The trigger, however, was quite another story. Most enchanted Honeydukes sweets either had a constant effect - like No-Melt Ice Cream - or an effect which activated when it came in contact with saliva - like Pepper Imps, Ice Mice, and so forth. But Draco, in his _infinite_ wisdom, had decided quite some time ago that he didn’t like the idea of the Dragonpops shooting fire when someone was sucking on one. He’d never much liked the fire-breathing effect of Pepper Imps; the fire felt odd in his mouth and left a weird aftertaste. If he let the Dragonpops spit fire while in the mouth, he worried that it would deter people from actually eating the things. Not to mention that it would mean _he_ wouldn’t enjoy them. No, he’d decided they should spit fire only when licked. Not before, and not after, which meant that it couldn’t be activated via contact with saliva or the tongue, or even the action of licking, which could take place within the mouth. No, he needed an automatically-deactivating charm triggered by the action of licking _only_ when outside the mouth.

Draco rather hated himself, sometimes.

By Friday, Draco was so deep in research that only Clearwater’s asking him if he were going to the park again that weekend reminded him that he hadn’t made any of the ice cream mix yet. Clearwater offered to help him - she was stuck in the middle of developing a charm for her own project and said that she could use the break to clear her head - and they managed to cook up enough by only a little bit after standard hours.

“I’m glad you’re actually okay,” Clearwater said to him at one point, as they stood mixing huge cauldrons of lemon. Draco looked at her, confused, but she was focused on her stirring. “You’ve been so animated lately. You seemed happy. But this week you’ve been locked in here days and nights, and when we’ve happened to see you, you’ve had this look on your face.” She looked at him then, and screwed up her face into something that looked like cross agony. Draco frowned and recoiled slightly. Had he really been going about looking like that? He really needed to work on concealing his emotions.

“But,” Clearwater went on, “I’m glad to see it was just a project vexing you. I’d been starting to think you’d had a nasty breakup, or something.”

Draco made what he hoped was a surprised noise, and bit his tongue. He needed to remember, in the future, that Clearwater had been a Ravenclaw back in the day. She was perspicacious and curious, and apparently cared for him at least a bit, which Draco supposed was fair as it wasn’t like he _wasn’t_ rather fond of Clearwater and Whitby, and even Pamela.

“You haven’t, have you?”

Draco cleared his throat and tried to clear his face as well. “Not so much, no. I mean, of course not,” he babbled, which was rather more than he’d meant to say.

“Lovers’ quarrel, then? Or a rejection?”

Draco felt his face heat, and he mumbled some nonsensical answer. Potter hadn’t rejected him, not really. Draco assumed he _would_ , for all of the obvious reasons, but it wasn’t as though he’d suffered an actual rejection. He simply hadn’t _tried_.

Clearwater sensed dangerous ground then, it seemed, as she backed off and changed the subject to Quidditch. Draco’s mind, however, strayed back to the topic repeatedly throughout the rest of the afternoon. He hadn’t tried. He hadn’t even _tried_.

* * *

At just after nine on the morning of the last Saturday in May, Draco stepped out of the floo at the old Bulstrode house and into an uproar.

The room with the fireplace was packed. People he’d gotten to know over the last few weeks and others he barely recognized at all were standing about, all talking loudly because the others were all talking loudly too, so that was the only way to be heard over the din. Still, two voices rose above the rest.

“Does anyone have _any_ other ideas?” That was Ronald, from somewhere farther back in the house. “We need a solution within three weeks, so every little bit helps!”

“We need to work this out before Monday, folks! If you could talk one at a time so I can actually hear you, that would be helpful!” And that was Potter, from much more nearby. Draco started moving in the direction of the meeting-or-maybe-Potter’s-office room, squeezing between people where he had to.

Draco had made it to the hallway - which was twice as packed as the fireplace room, people clustered around the archway into the meeting room - when a voice called out,

“Draco!” Draco spun around.

“Luna! What’s going on?”

“It’s raining,” Luna said, drawing him toward the slightly less crowded space at the base of the stairs. “So everyone’s trying to fix problems from inside.” She turned her large, silvery eyes toward the meeting room. “It’s a nice thought, but I don’t think it’s helping much.” Draco eyed the crowd dubiously. Frankly, he had to agree. Luna walked about halfway up the stairs and then sat. “Would you like to join me? You can see Harry from here.”

Draco flushed, but didn’t suppose there was any sense in denying to Luna, of all people, that he was interested in seeing Harry.

Potter was at the head of the large room, pacing in front of the freestanding chalkboards that Draco had found Luna and the others clustered around the first Saturday he’d come by. He’d never, in the weeks since, remembered to look to see what was written on them. Now he could see - if he squinted a little - that they were packed full of words.

Weasley Park, Wizard Wheezes World, Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes World, Weasleys’ Wheezy World, Weasleys’ Wacky World, Weasleys’ Wonderful Wacky World, Weasleys’ Wacky and Weird Wild Wonderland…

“They’re trying to name the park?”

“They are.”

“Why- why in the world doesn’t Potter do this on his own, or with George and Ronald? It’s his park.”

“I’m not sure,” Luna replied, thoughtfully. “I doubt he’s going to put up with this method much longer, though. He’s starting to get agitated.”

He was, at that. Potter was pacing more vigorously, and he was scowling as people in the room shouted suggestions, each longer and more ridiculous than the last. If Draco ducked a little, he could see that a pair of feet near the far chalkboard belonged to Thomas, who was hurriedly trying to write each suggestion down.

“One at a time!” Potter said again, irritation strongly colouring his voice.

“Yes, everyone, we’ve already tried every variation of _Aguamenti_ in the Standard Book of Spells, plus some we’ve made up ourselves. We’ve been over this!” Ronald’s voice called out at nearly the same time, from somewhere upstairs. He sounded a little calmer than Potter, at least. Draco looked over his shoulder, but couldn’t see him or the ostensible crowd he was handling.

“They’re trying to fix the Roiling Rapids,” Luna supplied, though Draco could have guessed that on his own. “They’ve been worse than ever before this week, even disturbing the fairies.”

“There are fairies?” Draco asked, but Luna didn’t apparently hear him.

“Oh, dear,” she said, her tone not at all surprised. “There he goes.”

Draco looked back. Potter’s _Sonorous_ apparently had shut off, because he was looking quite angry and speaking what looked to be very loudly, but Draco couldn’t quite make out his words. After a while, Potter gave up, face an angry red, and shoved roughly through the crowd before stomping out the front door and into the rain.

About a solid minute passed, Draco sitting awkwardly and feeling out of place, before Luna sighed. “Are you going to go after him, or shall I?”

“What- me?! Why would I-“

Luna gave him a _look_ that he hadn’t known she had in her.

“Oh, all right, fine. I _know_ why I would. But would Potter really want me to? We aren’t exactly the best of friends.”

“Harry likes you, Draco,” Luna said simply. “It always makes him happy to see you, these days.”

Draco gaped for a moment, speechless. When he managed to speak, it was in a high-pitched babble. “He… he what? Why? _What?_ ”

“Go on,” Luna urged, evidently not at all concerned by Draco’s bewilderment. Luna gave him a very soft shove, and Draco’s body decided to stand and walk down the stairs apparently of its own volition.

Draco was standing on the threshold before he came back to himself. It was raining kneazles and crups outside - not a windy sideways rain, but very heavy. Draco snorted quietly to himself as he cast the strongest _Impervius_ he could muster on his robes and shoes, then an umbrella charm. He sincerely doubted that this kind of rain would be helping the situation with the rapids.

Draco found Potter sitting on the sodden ground at the top of the hill, looking out over the park - or at least, he would have been looking out over the park, if he’d been able to see more than ten feet in front of himself through the rain. Draco considered for a moment, heart hammering against his ribs. He hadn’t even _tried_ , he told himself, then went over and sat down beside Potter.

Potter started to look at him, scowling, but then did a double-take, and the scowl melted away to make way for confusion.

“Draco?”

“Hello, P- Harry,” Draco replied, settling himself. He tried not to grimace at the muddy ground. His _Impervius_ wasn’t going to last long in these conditions. He’d just have to settle for drying charms once they got back inside. He huffed, making sure the umbrella charm covered them both as well as it could, and looked at Potter. “Bad day?”

Potter dropped his forehead against his raised knees. “No, Malfoy, I sit in driving rain all the time.”

Draco snorted. “Is that why your hair is like that?” He asked lightly. “Too much rain, not enough combing?”

Potter grumbled something incomprehensible and didn’t raise his head. Draco pressed against his dripping shoulder.

“Come on then, why are you letting that lot shout dreadful names at you instead of sending them home and having a cosy day in with the Weasleys and some tea?”

Potter did look over at him then, though without actually picking his head up. He looked sad and wrung-out. Draco’s heart squeezed, and he nudged Potter’s shoulder again.

“The official _Quibbler_ article about the park is supposed to publish on Monday,” Potter said, sounding defeated, “and we _still_ don’t have a name. We can’t reveal the park without a name, but nobody can agree on one, and the suggestions just keep getting worse!”

“Choose one yourself, then,” Draco replied, “It’s your park.”

“But I’m awful at this,” Potter muttered, turning back to his knees, “I know I object when it’s pointed out, and joke about it, but I really am. I don’t want to name the whole park something stupid. Everyone suggests decent things, usually, and I thought they’d give me some good ideas, but…” Potter made a sound halfway between a sigh and a groan. “I guess I hadn’t really realized how many people here are friends-of-friends, or even friends-of-friends-of-friends. And I’m grateful to them, I am, because without them we probably wouldn’t have gotten this far, but…” Potter groan-sighed again. Draco frowned and chewed on his lip for a few moments.

“Who named all the rides?”

Potter peered at him out of the corner of one eye. “Me, mostly. Some of them were Ron, or George, or Luna.”

“Well there you go. The rides are named reasonably, so you should be able to name the park as well. Just sit down with Ron, and George, and Luna, and work it out.”

Potter finally lifted his head. He studied Draco’s face for a long time. Draco pursed his lips, uneasy, but didn’t look away.

“What do you think I should name it?”

“What? Merlin, I don’t know, Potter. I haven’t given it any thought.”

“Why…” Potter hesitated, “why are you helping me?”

Draco bristled and looked away, out into the grey wall of rain. “You look miserable, Potter,” he snapped, then bit down on any further words, the half-finished sentiment hanging inelegantly in the air.

“What does that matter?” Potter demanded, voice raising. Draco clenched his jaw. “Why do you care? _Do_ you care? Why do you keep coming back? Is it all business, or do you actually like me?”

“Yes, I like you, you outrageous fuckwit!” Draco half-shouted the words, and Potter recoiled slightly, eyes wide. “I like you, and I like this outlandish field of deathtraps you’ve somehow dreamed up, and I even like your horrid Gryffindor friends! But especially, I like _you_ , you-“

Then Potter’s lips crashed into his, and Draco’s back crashed into the muddy grass, Draco’s wand rolling away and taking the umbrella charm with it. It took Draco’s brain several seconds to catch up, but then he groaned against Potter’s lips and fisted his hands in sopping wet black hair. The rain made their skin slip where it touched, kisses wet and sloppy. It was hard to pin down Potter’s lips and Draco was dangerously close to getting water up his nose, but Potter was on top of him and Draco’s insides felt firework bright, and he didn’t have any intention of going anywhere.

“Merlin,” Draco moaned as Potter mouthed along his jaw. His hands clenched in Potter’s hair.

“No,” Potter murmured barely loud enough to be heard over the pounding of the rain. He pulled back just enough to look Draco in the face, his spectacles askew and a smirk playing about his kiss-reddened lips. Rainwater dripped steadily from the tip of his nose onto Draco’s cheek. “Pretty sure my name’s Harry, not Merlin.”

Draco was lucky he didn’t hurt himself, rolling his eyes so hard. “Get back down here, you cheeky fucker. You’re dripping on me.” Harry grinned, and seemed only too happy to oblige.

Harry teased Draco’s mouth open and dipped his tongue in to stroke against Draco’s, hot and wet. Draco was fairly certain that he was making a continuous, keening moan as Harry plundered his mouth, but he couldn’t bring himself to be too fussed about it because Harry was kissing him _Harry was still kissing him_ , and Draco had no idea how he’d gotten this lucky.

They stayed like that for a long time, just kissing and gasping and clutching at each other wherever their waterlogged clothes would allow. It was only once a low roll of thunder rumbled across the sky that Draco pushed Harry back.

“Much as I’m loathe to stop, or to return to the bedlam in that house, I’d really rather not be struck by lightning today.”

Harry chuckled and kissed him once more, humming with pleasure, before awkwardly pushing himself back up again. His clothes were so heavy with water that they were drooping in places, and he was muddy around the edges where Draco’s body hadn’t shielded him from the ground. Draco supposed he was probably a sight, too.

Harry helped him up, then frowned and picked something off his shoulder.

“Ew,” Draco said, looking at the wriggling earthworm in Harry’s hand, “next time you want to snog me in a monsoon, we’re conjuring a blanket first.”

“Next time?” Harry’s voice was tentative but hopeful, and Draco looked up into his face. Harry’s green eyes were bright, and his lips were still red from their kissing, and Draco’s chest filled up with a fresh rush of heat.

“Next time,” Draco confirmed, “if… that is if you want-“

“I do,” Harry said quickly, and Draco couldn’t quite resist the urge to lean forward and kiss him again. Harry’s arms wrapped around his waist.

“I had no idea,” Draco admitted as he pulled back. “Even when Luna said you liked me, I didn’t think she meant this.”

“Luna knows I fancy you?”

Draco laughed. “Luna also knows _I_ fancy _you_ , and I certainly never told her.”

Harry chuckled and shook his head. “I think Hermione was trying to tell me, the other week. I didn’t believe her at the time.”

Draco shook his head as well. “I thought I saw her catching on while we were all having lunch, that first time.” He sighed, “Well, it’s probably for the best that we’re going into this already knowing we’re two of the thickest human beings on the planet.”

“But if we’re aware we’re thick, are we really all that thick?”

Draco snorted. “Yes, I think-“

Thunder crashed right overhead, and they both jumped.

“Right, standing at the top of a hill in a thunderstorm. Probably still thick,” Harry said, and Draco laughed as they let go of each other.

“Where’s my wand gone? It flew away when you tackled me.”

Harry reached out a hand. From this close, Draco could feel the swoop of Harry’s magic in a delightful rush that left his toes tingling. A moment later, Draco’s wand came flying up from the bottom of the hill and smacked into Harry’s palm.

“You’ll have to tell me later how you learned to do that,” Draco murmured as he plucked his wand from Harry’s hand. Harry’s cheeks pinked up and he nodded.

“Yeah, sure,” he said as they turned toward the castle. “It’s not that good of a story, though.”

Draco shrugged and smiled, and let Harry lead the way.

* * *

Ronald was in the middle of the corridor when they arrived back at the house, his _Sonorus_ sputtering as he attempted to control the agitated crowd.

“If everyone could just be-“ he mouthed ‘quiet’, but Draco couldn’t hear him over the noise of the crowd. “-that would be… very nice. Bloody fu-“ another gap “-is this spell working?” Ronald attempted to recast, but he looked thoroughly distressed, and didn’t seem to have much luck.

Beside Draco, Harry was much more successful.

“EVERYBODY, LISTEN UP!” Harry’s voice boomed through the house, and as its echoes faded away, they left in their wake a blessed silence broken only by Luna’s quiet, happy,

“Oh, good!”

The crowd stared at them, most wearing various shades of bewilderment. Ronald in particular had his mouth slightly agape, eyes flicking from Harry to Draco and back, over and over. Draco resisted the urge to straighten himself up under the scrutiny. Harry looked around, apparently considering, before going on “Thank you all very much for coming out to help today. Unfortunately, the weather doesn’t seem like it’s going to cooperate.” There was a little swell of disappointment from those assembled, and Harry waited it out. “I know, I feel the same way. That’s just how it is, though. Go on home, do your shopping, enjoy your free Saturday. I’ll see you all again soon.”

There was a moment where the crowd hesitated, but then Ronald said, looking visibly relieved, “You heard Harry! Go on,” and people started Disapparating, the rest beginning a slow shuffle toward the floo.

“Weasleys can stay,” Harry added, “Ron, Luna, and Dean, I’d like your help with something. Neville too.”

Draco snagged Pansy as she attempted to move past. He hadn’t known she was there, but at some point, she must have started coming independently of him and his ice cream. He didn’t know why he was even slightly surprised. She took one look at him and Harry and burst into laughter. She didn’t ask what they’d done, or _if_ they’d done, and instead called Ronald over. He pushed his way through the thinning crowd, a grin on his face.

“I can’t believe I owe you ten galleons,” Pansy said when he stopped in front of them.

“You had a bet on?” Harry asked, sounding half miffed and half amused. “With _Parkinson_?” Pansy shot Harry an intentionally false smile and fluttered her eyelashes at him. “About what?”

“I said you were both clueless and wouldn’t get together within the month. Two more days! Two more days and I’d have had it!” Pansy lamented.

Harry looked at Ron fondly. “You didn’t bet against me, though? That’s what mates are for.”

Ronald coughed, the tips of his ears turning red. “Uh, actually, I didn’t want to take the bet.”

“Ron!”

“What? It had already been a month, I didn’t think it was going to happen without a push at that point. But you were both… uh, pretty obvious. So I took the bet on the condition that I could bet that someone would just tell you within the month.”

“They did,” Draco said, and everyone turned to look at him. He attempted to straighten his still-dripping robes self-consciously. “Luna told me, just today. I didn’t… quite understand, but…”

Ronald’s face was lighting up.

“Hermione told me about two weeks ago, actually,” Harry added. “I thought she was wrong, which, I know, believe me. Someday I’m gonna learn. But she did tell me.”

“Twenty!” Ronald crowed. “You owe me _twenty_ galleons! They were told, _and_ they figured it out on their own!”

Pansy grumbled, looked like she was going to protest for a moment, then sighed. “I don’t even have twenty on me. I’ll bring it tomorrow.” Then she smiled widely and leaned in near to Draco, though Draco noticed she carefully avoided touching him. He was fairly sure a puddle of mud was forming on the floor beneath him. “You have _got_ to tell me all about it. Did you get to see…?” Pansy waggled her eyebrows in an exaggerated fashion, and Draco spluttered incoherently in reply.

A small commotion sounded from the floo, and a few moments later Granger appeared.

“Hello, sorry I’m late. Are you sending everybody ho-“ She halted in her advance and stared at Harry, then at Draco. “Oh! Are you… did you?”

“Yeah,” Harry said, at the same time as Pansy said, “Clearly,” and Ronald said, “Looks like.” Draco bit down on his question of what, specifically, she wondered if they’d done.

Granger’s eyes lit up, and then rapidly moved toward soft and sentimental. “Finally! Oh, I’m so glad for you, Harry.” She nodded in Draco’s direction as well.

The crowd was almost gone by then, and those who remained began drifting over to join them in their knot by the door.

“I hate to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I’m surprised none of you are objecting at all,” Draco found himself saying as Luna wrapped an arm each around Harry and Draco’s shoulders, heedless of the mud and wet.

Ronald chuckled. So did three other Weasleys. Granger smiled and shook her head.

“Harry’s crush hasn’t exactly been a secret,” George said, smirking, “We’ve had a _while_ to get used to the idea.”

Draco looked around Luna at Harry. Harry looked back, his face pink.

“Oh,” was all Draco could find to say.

“So, what are we gonna do?” That was the dragon tamer Weasley, who was leaning against one of the corridor walls, smirky amusement playing about his lips.

“I was thinking we’d start with the name, since we need it by tomorrow night by the latest,” Harry said. “If we have time, later we can move on to the rapids.” He started forward, but Granger stopped him with a strong look. “Oh, right,” he said, looking down at his clothes sheepishly. They had dried a bit, but if the puddle on the fine hardwood floor was any indication, that was only because they were dripping it all off.

Granger rolled her eyes, not quite able to look entirely cross. “Honestly, Harry, you’re almost as bad as Rose,” she said, drawing her wand. She flicked it several times in rapid succession. Harry’s clothes dried, as did the puddle at his feet, and the mud on his clothes and skin vanished. Then, almost before Draco knew what was happening, she’d rounded on him and done the same. Draco’s mouth fell open as his robes fluffed up around him, warm and dry and smelling faintly of lavender.

“You missed a bit of mud on the back,” Luna said, and bade Draco to turn around with a gentle tug of his shoulders.

“Oh my,” Granger giggled. Pansy cackled. Harry choked on a laugh. A snap-flash sounded.

“Are you taking a _photograph_ of my backside?” Draco demanded, twisting. He couldn’t spot whomever had the camera from his angle.

“Is it any good?” Ronald asked.

“I think it will be,” Luna said. Draco twisted more. Luna was the one who had produced a camera from somewhere and was holding a snapshot up, waiting for it to develop. The traitor! Draco scowled.

“Stop fidgeting like that, Malfoy,” Granger said in such a weary mother’s tone that Draco instantly obeyed. He felt her casting several more spells as the chatter carried on in the background.

“Oh, that’s great!” Ronald said, highly amused. “Harry, look at this!”

“Can we duplicate it? I _need_ a copy of that,” Pansy said. Draco tried and failed not to groan.

“I don’t see why not,” Luna said. “Dean, you know the spells for that, right?”

“Sure, let me see- oh my god.” Draco shook his head as Thomas dissolved into laughter.

“Hold _still_ , Malfoy,” Granger scolded.

Ginevra appeared in front of him and leaned against the wall, arms crossed casually and face all sharp smirk and wicked eyes.

“This is your life now,” she said, appearing to be entirely too entertained, “Welcome to the family.”

“Wha- to the- we _snogged_!” Draco’s voice came out much too high and slightly too loud. Ginevra’s smirk widened into a very lopsided grin. “ _Once_! Not got engaged!”

“Malfoy, _honestly_ ,” Granger chided.

“Too late,” Ginevra said. “Luna likes you, Harry _likes_ you, Hermione’s mothering you-“ Granger huffed behind him, “-you’ve brought dessert three times, and your arse is going to be in at least two photo albums plus a bulletin board or three. You’re one of us now! There’s no escape.”

Draco had to make a strong effort not to drop his head or bury his face in his hands, lest Granger give up on him entirely. Luckily - or perhaps unfortunately - Ginevra seemed perfectly delighted with his facial expression alone.

“Hey,” she called across the corridor, “send one of those over here!”

“There,” Granger finally said as a photograph worked its way through the air to Ginevra’s waiting hand, moving like an autumn leaf in the wind. “That’s as clean as it will get without a proper wash.” She came around to stand beside him. “You are _worse_ than Rose, and just so you know, Rose is three.”

Heat crept into Draco’s cheeks, and he cleared his throat. “Thank you,” he said quietly.

Granger’s eyebrows raised, but she seemed pleased.

“Here, Malfoy,” Ginevra cut back in, holding out the photograph and grinning again, “have a look.”

Draco took it, looked, and then almost immediately heard a mouselike squeak issue from his throat. The photograph was of him, of course, his back to the camera, flanked on the left by a giggling Pansy and on the right by Harry, who was trying to hide his laughter. Draco himself was peeking over his own shoulder, trying to see what the others were looking at and slightly pink in the face in an unattractive, splotchy way. His whole back was coated in a thin layer of dried mud… except in one spot.

That spot being his bum, where stood out two large, distinct handprints. Draco felt hot all over, and was fairly certain that would mean he now looked even worse than his splotchy photograph-self. Ginevra cackled at him.

“Tea will be ready in a few minutes,” someone announced, though Draco didn’t tear his eyes away from the photograph in time to see who it had been. Everyone who was left - mostly a multitude of Weasleys, Draco noted - started making their way into the questionably-the-meeting-room room, vanishing the excess of chairs and conjuring tables.

A few minutes later found Draco seated once again at a cheap folding table in a cheap folding chair with a very large number of Gryffindors, plus one Ravenclaw, a Muggle, and Pansy (who no one had asked to leave and had therefore apparently invited herself to the meeting). Once everyone had a cup of tea in front of them, Harry, who was sitting at the head of the line of tables, spoke.

“So,” he began, and the murmurs of conversation tapered off. “What do we do about the name?”

“It’s your call, mate,” Ronald said, and Draco felt a weird sense of kinship with the group as he nodded in agreement along with them.

“What do you think, Harry?” Granger asked. Harry exhaled a sound halfway between a sigh and a grunt, and took a sip of his tea, frowning.

“I want… to keep the alliteration,” he said after a long pause, “and to keep the Weasleys’ name. It shouldn’t be too long or difficult to pronounce, since people will have to use the name to floo in, but…” Harry’s mouth quirked downward, “other than that, I’m not sure.”

“Let’s work it through from there, then,” Audrey suggested, and after Harry’s slightly hesitant nod, everyone set to it.

“‘Wacky’ doesn’t quite feel right,” Ginevra mused to Luna, who nodded sagely.

“Is ‘Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes World’ too long, do you think?” Granger asked Harry.

“I’ve always kind of thought so,” Ronald responded instead, “Keeping to a three-word name, like the shop-“

“It has to be a completely different middle word then, though,” Granger interrupted, “‘Weasleys’ Wizard World’ and ‘Weasleys’ Wheezes World’ both feel like… like missing a step on the stairs.”

“‘Weasleys’ Wild World’ doesn’t sound _awful_ …” George said to the dragon tamer Weasley, “but it’s sort of flat.”

The conversations flowed around the table, on and on, and Draco sat in the middle of it all rather uselessly. Percy had summoned parchment, quills, and ink at some point and passed them out, though no one except Granger was really using them. Draco idly doodled a border of Dragonpops and ice creams around one parchment sheet as he listened to the others talk. He honestly hadn’t put any thought to naming the park prior to about an hour before, and to make it worse it was as if every word that began with ‘W’ which he’d ever known had vanished entirely from his lexicon.

It wasn’t so bad, he supposed, simply sitting amongst this group. It was… companionable. He could get used to it. He glanced at Harry, and felt his lips quirk involuntarily. He could _really_ get used to it.

The name pieced together slowly. The first breakthrough came when Pansy suddenly declared,

“There it is! Wonderpark!”

Draco looked over curiously. He hadn’t been paying attention to the lead-in, instead listening to Harry, Ronald, and Granger debate the possibility of the middle word being ‘Wizarding.’

“Yeah, that’s the one!” Thomas replied. They were both looking down the table in Draco’s direction - at the chalkboards, Draco realized. “I _knew_ I remembered someone suggesting something good.”

“Wonderpark?” Harry asked. “Is that all right to use?” He glanced back over his shoulder as if the chalkboards would tell him the answer. “I mean, is that the name of something already?”

“If it is, it’s Muggle,” Pansy said. “This is the first wizarding amusement park in the world, right?”

“Not quite,” Granger replied. “There was one in Japan in the eighties, but it’s been closed since we were children.”

“Well there you go, then,” Pansy said, “You can’t steal from someone if there’s no one to steal from.”

Harry chewed his lip uncertainly. “I like the sound of it, but…” he glanced at Audrey, then Granger.

“I’ve never heard of anything called that,” Audrey said, “though I’m not exactly a theme park expert.”

“I haven’t either, but give me a minute and I’ll Google it,” Granger said.

Harry nodded. “Thanks,” he said, and Granger took that as her cue to stand and swiftly Disapparate.

“She’s doing what?” Draco asked.

Harry smiled. “She’s looking it up with a Muggle search engine.”

“Search… engine?” Draco was officially confused.

“Yeah, it’s like… uh… like going to a library, but instead of looking at every book you can just… write down what you want to know? And then it’ll find some stuff that’s related to what you asked for.”

“So, it’s a librarian?”

“Sort of, but without an actual person being involved. Plus it would be like if the librarian literally knew everything in the world. Well, basically everything.”

Draco blinked.

Harry and Audrey were halfway through explaining about search engines and ‘the inter-net’ and ‘computers’ to Draco when Granger came back through the floo.

“It should be fine,” she said. “There’s a few places here and there with wonderpark in the name, but none of them seem to be amusement parks, and none are in the UK so far as I can find.”

Harry smiled, wide and bright. “Thanks, Hermione.”

“So, Weasleys’ _something_ Wonderpark?” Ronald asked.

“Yeah,” Harry said after a slight pause. “Yeah, I like the way that sounds.”

The conversations around the table changed then, a little faster and a tiny bit louder. Harry lapsed into silence, brow creased in thought.

“Weasleys’ Wizarding Wonderpark?”

“What about Weasleys’ Wild Wonderpark?”

“‘Wild’ _still_ sounds flat, Charlie.”

“Weasleys’… uh, Weasleys’…”

“Weasleys’ Wonderful- no…”

“Weasleys’ Whimsical Wonderpark.”

“Wait, what was that?” Harry looked up, and everyone around the table fell silent.

“What, ‘Wonderful’?” Longbottom asked. “It’s a little redundant.”

“No, no, the other one.”

“Oh, was it ‘Whimsical’?” Luna asked. The word was barely out of her mouth before Harry was saying,

“ _Yes_ , that’s it! Weasleys’ Whimsical Wonderpark! That’s perfect! That’s-“ and then he looked slightly uncertain. “What do you guys think?”

“I think it’s wonderful,” Luna said, then giggled at her own mediocre pun. Ginevra and Longbottom both looked at her with identical, terribly fond expressions.

Some of the others around the table tried the name out, and one after another nodded or shrugged or told Harry it sounded good. With each sign of agreement, some of the stress that had been so inherent in Harry’s posture and expression since they’d reconnected two months ago melted away, layer by layer. Harry leaned back in his chair and gave an immensely relieved laugh.

“That’s it, then? We can make the announcement?” At the affirmations of his friends, Harry covered his face with his hands and laughed again. “Oh my god,” he said, still laughing and muffled, “We can do it. We’re actually gonna do it.”

Draco wasn’t sure if it was that the affection in the room became palpable as Harry said that, or if it was rather that Draco himself was so ridiculously beset with a gooey warmth that it was spilling out of him in all directions like a malfunctioning caramel warming vat. The glance that Longbottom shot him across the table indicated that it may well be the latter, though the way Ronald and Granger echoed Harry’s laughter, Ronald giving him a gentle punch in the arm, implied it might not only be him. Draco dropped his eyes to his parchment, doodled some more, and smiled.

Some minutes passed. Thomas retreated to his upstairs studio to draft signs and logos with the new official name. Bill and the dragon tamer Weasley wandered off to the kitchen to make another pot of tea. The meeting broke up into a handful of small groups that murmured amongst themselves, Draco falling into easy conversation with Audrey, who only teased him the tiniest bit over what had apparently been the very open secret of his and Harry’s mutual pining.

“Okay,” Harry eventually said, and though everyone didn’t return to their orderly little places around the tables, they did stop to listen. “So, the rapids.”

It felt like the entire room bit back a collective groan. When Draco glanced around, he found a rather interesting variety of frustrated and guilty expressions - it seemed that just about everyone really _had_ had a go at fixing the rapids. Likely more than one go, actually. Possibly a hell of a lot of ‘go’s, in some cases.

“Remind me, what’s the problem with the rapids?” Pansy asked from where she stood with George and Percy, lips pursed uncertainly.

“The problem is they’re constantly on the fritz,” Ronald supplied. “We put them together last year, and they worked. Then out of nowhere, they started flooding and shooting water all over whenever we’d turn them on, and lately they’re even worse than that, sometimes trying to flood the whole waterpark.”

“Like the biggest geyser you’ve ever seen,” Ginevra interjected.

“We’ve tried to fix them, but we haven’t been able to pin down what the problem is, exactly. And we’ve tried dispelling all the magic and starting over fresh, but some of the spells are… persistent, to say the least.”

Pansy chewed on the inside of her cheek for a beat after Ronald finished. “Okay, now I know you’ve probably tried this already, but I have to ask - have you called a plumber?”

Five eye-rolls were enough answer for Draco, but Harry clarified anyway. “Every single magic plumber in the isles, and a few from the mainland. Most of them refused the job outright, saying they work with toilets and sinks, not raging rapids. A couple agreed to give us an estimate and then fucked off after they got a look at the spellwork.”

“Apparently, people who go into plumbing for a career don’t have much of a sense of adventure,” Ginevra said, smirking. “Who knew?”

Granger gave a very resigned sigh, then took a breath and looked at Harry. “All right,” she said, with the tone of someone agreeing to something they’d long refused. Draco vaguely recalled Harry telling him over lunch more than a month earlier how she hadn’t wanted to take it on as a project, so she could spend what little free time she had with her children. “I’ll have a look at it. Where are the notes?” The look Harry gave her then was enough that Draco felt the slightest hint of jealousy jab in his chest.

Harry waved his hand vaguely in the direction of the corridor, and a few moments later a notebook flew to Harry, nearly clipping Ronald’s head en route. Draco stared at the thing in fascinated horror. The notebook was huge and quite possibly the messiest he’d ever seen. Papers and parchment slips of various colours were stuffed in between the pages to the extent that the book had grown maybe twice its original size. As a bonus, the whole thing looked like it had been dropped into water at least once.

“Merlin.” The word slipped out before Draco could really help it. When half the room turned to look at him, Draco blushed but motioned to the notebook and said, “That is a _monstrosity_.”

Harry laughed, not seeming the slightest bit embarrassed by his bookkeeping.

Granger sighed again, rolled her eyes, and requisitioned the remainder of Percy’s parchment before spreading out her materials across an entire card table and getting to work. Draco stared for a moment, transported back to Hogwarts where on just about any given night he could walk into the library to find this exact scene playing out, before Audrey nudged him gently in the side and they joined Granger at her table.

Something started niggling at the back of Draco’s mind almost immediately, as they read through the initial attempts and experiments that lead up to the construction of the rapids. Nothing came to the surface, though, for hours. Pots of tea came and went, Pansy and Longbottom left to retrieve lunch from the Leaky. Granger’s writing hand actually tired after an entire morning and half an afternoon of abuse and they took a break, Draco conjuring a plush sofa for them to relax on under the windows while the charms Granger cast on her wrist wrong-handed had a chance to set in. Harry joined them there, showing off the Weasleys’ Whimsical Wonderpark logos Thomas had designed. He slung an arm around Draco’s shoulders as he talked, and despite the complicated mess of spells and theories buzzing through Draco’s brain, he felt like he might combust from happiness.

It was nearing time for dinner when they finally hit the point in the notes where the spells on the rapids had been unsuccessfully dispelled and then re-cast. Most of their number had departed by then, most going home (Pansy had stopped by the table to peck Draco on the cheek before she’d left), George to the shop, and Luna and Longbottom into the park to work when the rain finally let up.

“I’ll keep Rose and Hugo entertained,” the dragon tamer Weasley said to Ronald and Granger when they worried over which one of them ought to go home.

“I owe you one, Charlie,” Ronald said, gratefully, and oh, Draco thought, _Charlie_ was the name, that’s right.

Charlie waved him off. “Nah, I love the little tykes. They’re sweet kids.”

“Hmm, how much would I owe you if I got you to bring us food before you stopped by Mum’s?” Ronald asked, grinning. Charlie laughed, but half an hour later he reappeared with a large cauldron of beef stew and a basket of piping-hot dinner rolls that Draco could smell the moment they came through the floo.

“Courtesy of Hannah,” he said. “She said that it’s free, so long as we tell her husband to ‘at least _try_ to wash the mud off before he comes home’. Apparently last time it stormed, she found three slugs and an earthworm in their rooms.”

Draco and Harry exchanged a glance, and Ronald gave Harry a confused, curious look when he bit down on a snicker.

They worked through dinner, Luna and Longbottom reappearing about halfway through, caked in mud and laughing. The torrential rain had miraculously not washed away their newly planted flowerbeds, they reported as they stripped themselves of the mud under Granger’s watchful gaze, but the grass seed they’d planted on Tuesday would need to be redone.

“It must have rained five inches,” Longbottom commented as Luna looked him over for anything he’d missed. She picked a leaf out of his hair. “Every one of the fountains we passed had overflowed.”

Something clicked in Draco’s mind, and the conversation faded to an indistinct buzz.

The fountain. The main fountain just inside the entrance had been the first thing Harry had actually tried to build for the park, and he’d more or less made up the spell for the custom water jets on his own.

“Audrey,” Draco said, quiet, and didn’t notice how everyone in the room fell silent or looked at him, focused on the picture forming in his mind. “What was the spell used for the water jets in the rapids, originally?”

Audrey flipped through sheets of parchment for a moment before responding, “A custom spell, with no incantation or specific wand movement. Ostensibly a variation of _Aguamenti_.”

“And that was one of the spells that wasn’t fully dispelled during the do-over?”

“Yes,” Audrey replied.

“Ronald,” Draco said, turning his attention. Ronald blinked at him. “On the day that I brought the Jelly-go-Round prototypes and found you lot in the rapids, you joked that the fountain responds to Harry’s emotions. What if it actually does?”

“And that same spell was used for the rapids!” Granger exclaimed. “Oh my god, Malfoy, that’s it! Well, I mean we don’t know for certain yet, but-“

“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” Audrey cut in, “All the other spells, even the ones that couldn’t be dispelled, are relatively standard. That one’s the wild card.”

“But the fountain has never acted up like the rapids,” Ronald said, looking between the three of them with an odd expression on his face.

“It may have interacted with the other spells placed on the rapids but not needed for the fountain in an unexpected way,” Granger babbled, flipping through the notes, “Or perhaps… Harry, did you increase the strength of that spell for the rapids?”

“I… uh, yeah. It needed to push boats around instead of just shoot into the air.”

Granger chewed on her lip for a moment. “It… it makes sense,” she finally said. “The rapids started acting up last year, around the time it became apparent we wouldn’t be able to finish the park in time to open it that summer. Then it just got worse the more you worked on it - because of the frustration, probably.”

“And then it got really bad the day after Malfoy showed up,” Longbottom added. Harry went pink. “In fact, since then, it’s been getting continuously worse. What do you all bet that if we went and tried it right now, after today’s events-“ Longbottom’s eyes flickered between Harry and Draco, and Draco felt his own face pink up as well, “-it would be halfway reasonable?”

Everyone exchanged glances, and then with a clatter of chairs, all but ran out the door.

* * *

As it turned out, the fountain spell was the root of the problem.

The seven of them tested the reactions of the rapids and the fountain until well past dark. The remaining stew was ice cold when they finally returned to the house, but no one really minded, giggly with the elation of the mystery finally being solved, not even minding when their warming charms didn’t quite do the trick.

It took another week and a half, Hermione’s constant advice, Bill’s cursebreaking expertise, and three consultations with a very put-out plumber before the Roiling Rapids was in working order. The first successful test run of the ride in over a year happened on the second Wednesday in June, late enough in the evening that Draco had left work for the night and stopped by to see how things were going.

That Friday, one last piece fell into place when the Dragonpops spell finally passed testing. Draco took the first batch to the park directly, even though it was still the middle of the afternoon. Harry and several assorted Weasley children were there to greet him when he burst out the floo, smiling from ear to ear.

“They’re done!” Draco exclaimed, enthusiastically placing the box of lollies on the card table that Harry used instead of a desk as Harry looked on, bemused. “The Dragonpops! And Merlin, _just_ in time, we have all of a week to manufacture enough for opening day.”

Several small redheads were beginning to crowd around the table, and Draco pulled one red pop out of the box and handed it to Harry.

“You first. Try it out.”

“Okay, uh-“ Harry twirled the lolly in his fingers, looking at it from all angles, grinning so wide that Draco was fairly certain his face would be sore before too long. “So I just… lick it?”

Draco nodded sharply, and Harry, after a moment of consideration, pointed the dragon’s face away from him and licked the back of its head. A burst of flame shot from the lolly’s ‘mouth,’ scorching nothing, but causing a ripple of ooh’s and shrieks from the assembled children.

“Again!” shouted a particularly short child whose dark face was speckled with even darker freckles. Harry obliged, and she shrieked again, jumping away from the table and laughing.

“I want one! Can I have one?” Dominique crowed, dancing up over the edge of the table on her tip-toes. Draco quickly did the math.

“There’s enough for everyone,” he said after a moment, “but be patient, I have to show Harry one more thing. Try putting it in your mouth.” Harry hesitated, but did as instructed. Then his eyes widened.

“‘O fiya?” The children giggled and Harry pulled the pop out of his mouth. “No fire? And it still-“ he licked it again, and the dragon shot flames across the table. “Oh, that’s-“ he laughed, and looked up at Draco like it was Draco who made the sun shine. A weird, happy lump formed in Draco’s throat. “You did it, you really did! That’s _brilliant!_ ”

Draco smiled at him and then busied himself handing out a winning combination of sugar and fire to the group of excitable children crowding around him. It wasn’t until they were all licking cherry dragon heads and pelting each other with fake flames that Draco looked back up at Harry.

“You like them?” Draco asked quietly. “They’re good?”

Harry stood. “They are,” he replied, just as quiet, an arm wrapping around Draco’s shoulders while the children were distracted. “I love them.”

Draco leaned in as Harry did, and at the last moment, when Draco’s eyes were nearly shut, Harry’s hand darted up and a burst of flames engulfed him. Harry howled with laughter, still clutching his Dragonpop, as Draco sputtered.

* * *

The third Saturday in June began the same way as Saturday mornings had been starting for weeks now. Draco’s alarm spell went off at eight in the morning, he rolled out of bed as quickly as his body would let him and performed the requisite grooming spells, dressed in robes that looked acceptable but could take a little bit of a beating, and then prepared and ate his usual breakfast of jam toast and tea.

That was where things diverged. “Weasleys’ Wonderpark Office,” was what Draco called into the fire - the address had been changed just that week, mostly to prevent people who should have been arriving via the public floos at the front gate from sneaking in the back way instead. The house was filled with an excited, nervous buzz as people milled about. Draco spotted George (who nodded at him), Ronald (who grinned at him), and Luna (who momentarily broke away from her conversation with Ginevra to hug him) before finding Harry near the desk (cheap card table) in his office (it really was his office, as it turned out - the nameplate had been installed by the archway the week before), talking to someone whose back was to Draco as he approached.

“I like what you’ve done with the place,” the person said, and oh, Draco recognized that voice, even if he hadn’t recognized the dyed-blonde hair or the elegant but modest periwinkle robes.

Harry smiled, genuine but with an undisguisable edge of nerves. His eyes flicked past his guest to Draco, and his smile widened. Millicent Bulstrode turned to look as well.

“Malfoy?” she said, surprise in her voice, at the same time as Harry said,

“Draco,” a little too quiet and a little too soft. Draco’s heart melted in his chest and he smiled helplessly.

“Harry,” Draco replied. “Bulstrode, I didn’t expect to see you today. Last I heard from Pansy, you were in… where was it, Trinidad?”

Millicent hummed affirmation, looking extraordinarily pleased with herself. “Yes, the Caribbean tour has been quite rewarding. I just had to catch a Portkey back, though, when Harry invited me to the grand opening.” She shot a moderately warm smile at Harry, and Harry returned it. She looked back to Draco. “I’m surprised to meet you here, though.”

“Yes, well,” Draco said as Harry shot him a soppy look, “I’ve been working for the park via Honeydukes.” Draco finally tore his eyes from Harry and looked at Millicent, who was clearly under no delusions about why Draco was there. “You should try the lemon soft whip if you’ve the chance. It’s far and away the favourite.”

Millicent hummed again, and smirked at them a few minutes later when Ginevra came by and addressed them as “the lovebirds.”

The park was set to open at ten AM sharp, and so at half nine they began their procession to the front gates. Millicent stopped in her tracks as they exited the castle and started down the hill.

“ _Shit_ ,” she breathed, “I saw the photographs in the papers, of course, but…” Then she shook her head, eyes trailing strange paths across the landscape, and kept walking.

The park was abuzz with activity, even before opening. Everywhere Draco looked, house-elves in magenta Weasleys’ robes ran this way and that, setting up games, opening shops (Draco’s eyes lingered on one he’d painted with Audrey and Sally-Anne), and running final tests of the rides. All of the restaurants and food stalls were beginning to warm up as well, and a heady aroma was starting to twist through the air on the breeze: frying oil, and machine oil, and a hint of lake water from all the way over near the merry-go-round. Draco glanced at Harry. He didn’t seem to be taking much of it in, his eyes distant and lost in thought. They were passing The Giant Squid, its metal arms dancing through the air, when Harry let out his third sharp sigh. Draco bumped their shoulders together a little clumsily, drawing a smile out of Harry, and not very surreptitiously linked their hands together.

“Nervous?” Harry asked, squeezing Draco’s hand.

“I’m not nervous,” Draco replied.

He was, in fact, very nervous.

He was also very certain that Harry was nervous, too.

“This whole idea is mad, and you came up with it, so naturally it will be a smashing success.” Harry looked at him a little uncertainly, as if he were being hard to read, so Draco squeezed his hand back. “It will be brilliant,” he said quietly, and Harry’s face softened. “Everyone will love it, unless they hate every kind of fun in the world.”

“Every kind of fun?” Harry asked, even quieter than Draco, and raised his eyebrows. “I can definitely think of some kinds of fun that are not represented here.”

Draco frowned at him for a moment, thinking of rides and games and food and toys, and then the knut dropped, and Draco felt himself turn as red as the rollercoaster that crowned the park.

“Yes! Well!” he replied, a bit too loudly, sticking his nose in the air in a vain attempt to recapture his dignity. “There’s that. You win this one, I suppose.”

Draco felt more than heard Harry’s laugh, through the link of their hands.

A crowd had already formed by the time they arrived at the front gates, an excited froth of people who, having already purchased their tickets, were being held back only by a waist-high fence and the stern gazes of a handful of magenta-clad house-elves. On the near side of the fence, a much smaller crowd had formed, consisting mostly of Weasleys who hadn’t been up at the house (including all of the children, the total number of whom was frankly intimidating so far as Draco was concerned). Teddy, whose hair was streaked in the bright red-blue-yellow-green-purple of the park, ran to Harry the moment he noticed their approach.

In the space between the crowd and the purple cobblestones lining the streets of Jovi Alley, a great golden arch had been set up, across which was strung a red satin ribbon. Ronald and George walked over to it, their conversation drowned out by the hum of the crowd. Draco checked his watch - it was nearly time.

“Okay,” Granger addressed their small group, “Harry, you need to join Ron and George by the arch. Everyone else, we need you to line up over there to watch the ceremony! Keep hold of your kids!” She gently bounced the redheaded baby on her hip for effect.

Draco wound up between Molly Weasley - who looked rather conflicted about being stood next to him but greeted him politely nevertheless - and, oddly enough, Molly Weasley. Audrey grinned at him over her six-year-old’s head as she introduced the child, who gave him the quickest of ‘hello’s before turning eagerly back to the ribbon, where nothing was actually happening yet, though Draco could hardly fault her excitement.

The ceremony was short, and George did most of the talking after signaling for attention with a handful of small fireworks that rained gold and silver over the crowd’s heads.

“Good morning, everyone!”

The crowd cheered in response. Draco’s heart did a little flip-flop in his chest, and he darted his eyes over to Harry. Harry’s face was caught between joy and awe, his mouth hanging slightly open. Ronald patted him on the shoulder.

“We know you’re excited to be here today and so are we, so we’re going to keep this brief.”

Another, smaller cheer from the crowd.

“This park has been a massive project, and too many people to name have dedicated thousands of hours to making sure everything is standing and functioning and safe, not to mention making sure that we ourselves were standing and functioning through it all.”

A murmur of laughter from the crowd. Draco leaned closer to Audrey and whispered,

“Who wrote this speech? Not George.” George’s speech would have been funnier, he was sure.

Audrey chuckled. “Ron did, because Harry hates making speeches and George-“

Molly (the younger) hissed at them to be quiet, and Audrey chuckled again and patted her on the head. Draco glanced at the child sideways. Definitely Percy Weasley’s daughter.

“Many of those who helped were friends and family,” George threw a quick look over to the line of them, “who volunteered their time not for pay, but out of the goodness of their hearts and the hopes of seeing the park completed. So to everyone who built, and painted, and laid cobblestones, and cooked, and cleaned, and gardened, and slogged through waist-high water in a fake river, and watched over all eight - and then nine, and then ten - of their grandchildren almost every weekend for the last two and a half years, those of us at Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes thank you.”

This time, the cheer was mostly from the line of people that Draco was standing in, or perhaps it was simply that their small group cheered so loudly that Draco could hardly hear the rest of the crowd. Draco cheered too, and when the green of Harry’s eyes flickered over to him for a moment, Draco’s smile widened so much his face hurt.

George paused before motioning for quiet again. “So, let’s do this thing!” The crowd picked up cheering again as George traded places with Harry, who smiled out over everyone, warm and only slightly bashful. He looked at the ribbon, then glanced over one shoulder at George, and over the other shoulder at Ronald. One of George’s eyebrows quirked just the tiniest bit, and Ronald gave a short laugh. Draco was fairly sure that meant that the script was about to go out the metaphorical window. Harry turned toward the line of friends and family.

“Hey Teddy, want to cut the ribbon?”

Teddy yelped and all but ran from his grandmother’s side to join Harry, glowing with excitement. The crowd murmured with a warm laugh. Harry leaned down and said something to Teddy quietly as he conjured a large pair of golden scissors. Teddy nodded eagerly, and Harry stood back up and addressed the crowd as Teddy got into position, the scissors poised around the ribbon.

“With this, uh, ribbon-cutting, I declare Weasleys’ Whimsical Wonderpark officially open!”

Teddy grinned and snipped the scissors. The crowd erupted and cameras flashed as the ribbon fell away, almost louder and brighter than the fireworks that shot off in the centre of the park, sparkling in the daytime sky around the grand ferris wheel as it slowly began to turn.

Harry hustled Teddy off to the side as the house-elves opened a gate in the waist-high fence and the crowd began pouring through.

“Come on!” Molly (the younger) shouted over the noise, and pulled away her laughing mother, Percy and her younger sister trailing behind. From his other side, Draco was fairly certain he heard a sniffle from Molly (the elder), and she patted her robe’s pockets. Draco produced a handkerchief without much thinking about it and handed it over, eyeing the stream of people for a break.

“Thank you, dear,” Molly replied, then, “Oh,” in surprise as Draco nodded at her and pushed his way through the throng.

On the other side, Draco found Harry and Teddy hand-in-hand as they watched the rush of people entering the park with identical expressions and identical green eyes. Draco couldn’t have helped his smile if he’d tried. He made his way over next to Ronald.

“Not joining them?” Ronald asked.

Draco shook his head. “In a bit. This is their moment.”

Ronald clapped him on the shoulder, nodding.

It was several minutes until Harry glanced their way. For a split second he looked surprised, and then his expression melted away into a grin, soft and fond and so, so happy. Draco grinned back and headed over.

He didn’t need to turn and look to know that the fountain was forming a heart.

 

End

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! All comments are extremely welcome either here or on [Livejournal](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12066606).


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